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THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


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The  Minimum  Wage  and 
Syndicalism 

An  Independent  Survey  of  the  Two  Latest 
Movements  Affecting  American  Labor 


By 

JAMES  BOYLE 

Formerly  Private  Secretary  of  Governor  McKinley, 

and  American  Consul  at  Liverpool,  Eng. 

Author  of  "  What  is  Socialism?  " 

etc. 


STEWART   &   KIDD   COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS        -       -       CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  1913,  by 
Stewart  &  Kidd  Company 


All  rights  reserved,  Copyright  in  England 


3tf 


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Introduction 


The  body  of  the  text  of  this  book  is  a  reprint  of 
two  series  of  articles  by  the  author  which  appeared 
in  successive  weekly  issues  of  the  Cincinnati  Enquirer, 
from.  February  9  to  April  6,  1913 — both  dates  in- 
clusive; and  they  are  here  re-published  by  the  cour- 
teous consent  of  that  journal,  in  revised  and  re- 
arranged form. 

The  newspaper  articles  on  the  Minimum  Wage 
contained  several  references  of  local  and  passing  in- 
terest which  have  been  deleted,  and  some  particulars 
of  the  English  Trade  Boards  Act  of  1909  (affecting 
certain  "sweated"  industries)  and  the  Coal  Mines 
Act  of  1912   (as  to  coal  mining)   have  been  added. 

Reliable  information  as  to  Syndicalism  is  so  frag- 
mentary, and  the  developments  of  the  movement  are 
so  rapid  that  it  has  been  thought  advisable  to  give 
an  Appendix,  in  which  much  new  matter  will  be 
found. 

As  separate  questions,  there  is  no  connection  be- 
tween the  Minimum  Wage  and  Syndicalism.  The 
first  question  is  a  proposition  for  the  social  and  eco- 
nomic improvement  in  the  condition  of  working- 
people  along  Constitutional  lines,  but  as  to  the  wis- 
dom of  which  there  is  honest  and  legitimate  differ- 
ence of  opinion  not  only  among  speculative  reformers, 

669642 


INTRODUCTION 


but  among  practical  Labor  advocates  themselves. 
The  other  is  a  revolutionary  cult  which  is  repudiated 
by  all  well-balanced  minds,  whether  of  radical  or 
conservative  mold. 

But  the  agitation  for  the  Minimum  Wage  and 
the  propaganda  of  Syndicalism  are  akin  in  being 
phases  of  the  same  spirit  of  unrest  and  discontent 
now  sweeping  over  the  world,  and  which  is  the  most 
significant  characteristic  of  the  twentieth  century. 

There  is  no  occasion  for  pessimism  or  alarm,  for 
out  of  the  turmoil  discriminating  wisdom  will  evolve 
in  the  course  of  time ; — the  froth  will  be  blown  away 
and  the  chaff  will  be  winnowed,  and  the  residuum 
will  remain  to  add  to  the  ever-increasing  sum  of 
the  happiness  and  betterment  of  the  race. 

J.  B. 

Columbus,  Ohio,  May,  1913. 


Contents 
i     i 

THE  MINIMUM  WAGE 

CHAPTER  I 

Page 

The  Proposition  Stated   9-16 

A  Practical  Legislative  Issue  9 

The  Legal  Difficulty   10 

The  Argument  for  a  Minimum  Wage 11 

Is  It  "  Socialistic  ? "   13 

A  Many-sided  Question   15 

CHAPTER  II 

The  Minimum  Wage  in  New  Zealand 17-28 

The  Pioneer    17 

Strikes  in  New  Zealand   18 

Does  the  Minimum  Become  the  Maximum  ? . .  22 
Testimony  of  An  American  Expert 26 

CHAPTER  III 

In  Australia 29-43 

"Wage  Boards"   29 

An  English  Observer  33 

A  Native  Critic    36 

Sidney  Webb's  Commend ation   39 

New  Problems  Introduced 41 

5 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  IV  pAGE 

State  Regulation  op  "Wages  in  England 44-58 

An  Old  Question  44 

' '  Statute  of  Laborers  "   46 

State  Regulation  Condemned   47 

The  English  "Trades  Boards"  50 

For  Miners  53 

Special  Provisions  of  the  British -Acts.  ...  54 

CHAPTER  V 

The  Massachusetts  Law   59-70 

A  Conservative  Experiment   59 

Reasons  for  the  Law   62 

Provisions  of  the  Law  64 

Views  of  Two  Governors 66 

Criticism  by  Miss  Kelley 67 

CHAPTER  VI 

A  Serious  and  Complicated  Problem 71-85 

A  "Living"  Wage   71 

Varying  Standards  of  Living  74 

American  Wages    75 

' '  Sweated  ' '  Industries  and  Women  Workers  77 

The  Path  Strewn  With  Difficulties 79 

Attitude  of  Organized  Labor  81 

More  Objections,  and  a  "Scotch  Verdict".  83 


CONTENTS 


SYNDICALISM 

PART  I 

Page 

Its  Origin  and  Philosophy  87-103 

A  New  and  Startling  Movement 87 

Origin  of  Syndicalism  89 

Objects  of  Syndicalism   90 

Syndicalism  Defined  92 

Socla.lists  Abandon  "Fundamentals" 95 

Syndicalism  Versus  Socialism   98 

Syndicalism  and  Trade  Unionism   101 

PART  II 

In  Operation    104-124 

A  New  Form  of  Anarchism   104 

' '  Direct  Action  "   104 

The  "General  Strike"   106 

Revolution  Through  the  Strike 109 

"Sabotage"    112 

American  Syndicalism — The  "I.  W.  W. " . . .  115 

Future  of  Syndicalism    119 

Opposition  to  Syndicalism  121 

A  Temporary  Phenomenon  123 


CONTENTS 


APPENDIX 

Page 
Origin  of  Syndicalism    125 

The  "I.  W.  W."   126 

Condemnation  of  the  "I.  W.  W. "  127 

The  Question  of  Violence  128 

"Sabotage"    131 

"La  Greve  Perlee"   132 

The  Belgian  "General  Strike" 132 

Socialists  and  "Direct  Action"  133 

Bibliography 134 


The  Minimum  Wage 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Proposition  Stated 

A  Practical  Legislative  Issue. 

The  question  of  a  legal  minimum  wage  is  admit- 
tedly one  of  the  most  important  now  confronting  the 
democratic  countries  of  the  world. 

It  has  just  become  a  practical  legislative  issue  in 
a  number  of  States,  there  being  at  least  half  a  dozen 
bills  pending  to  establish  the  system. 

Ever  since  1894  New  Zealand,  and  since  1896  the 
British  Colony  of  Victoria  (now  a  State  in  the  Aus- 
tralian Commonwealth),  have  been  experimenting 
with  the  system ;  and  the  other  Australian  States  have 
followed.  In  1909  the  British  Government  provided 
for  a  minimum  wage  in  certain  "sweated"  industries, 
and  a  little  later  it  applied  the  principle  to  coal 
mining,  and  there  is  now  an  agitation  in  England 
to  extend  it  to  other  trades.  In  the  United  States 
only  one  State,  Massachusetts,  has  passed  a  minimum 
wage  law  so  far,  and  it  goes  into  effect  next  July. 
It  applies  only  to  women  in  the  "sweated"  industries, 
it  being  based  largely  on  the  British  law.* 

*See  p.  85,  Note  on  Utah. 


10  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

The  only  political  parties  to  declare  for  a  mini- 
mum wage  are  the  Socialist  (1912),  which  pledges 
itself  to  the  ''establishing  of  minimum  wage  scales," 
and  the  new  Progressive  party,  one  of  the  planks 
of  its  National  platform  being:  "We  pledge  our- 
selves to  work  unceasingly  in  State  and  Nation  for 
minimum  wage  standards  for  working  women,  to 
provide  a  living  wage  in  all  industrial  occupations." 

One  of  the  Constitutional  amendments  adopted  by 
the  people  of  Ohio,  September,  1912,  was  Section  34 
of  Article  2,  as  follows:  "Laws  may  be  passed  fix- 
ing and  regulating  the  hours  of  labor,  establishing 
a  minimum  wage  and  providing  for  the  comfort, 
health,  safety,  and  general  welfare  of  all  employees, 
and  no  other  provision  of  the  Constitution  shall  im- 
pair or  limit  this  power." 

The  Legal  Difficulty. 

Nearly  all  legal  authorities  favorable  to  a  minimum 
wage  agree  that  the  greatest  initial  difficulty  is  to  so 
frame  a  law  that  it  will  not  conflict  with  the  United 
States  Constitution,  and  there  is  a  concensus  of  opin- 
ion that  the  way  it  can  probably  be  done  is  to  make  the 
law  come  within  the  "police  power."  It  is  because  of 
this  that  the  Massachusetts  law  was  made  to  apply 
only  to  women,  they  being,  by  Court  construction, 
under  "the  tutelage"  of  the  State ;  and  the  basis  of  the 
Massachusetts  law  is  that  it  is  necessary  to  protect 
women  from  being  compelled  to  receive  wages  which 
are  "inadequate  to  supply  the  necessary  cost  of  liv- 
ing and  to  maintain  the  workers  in  health."    Thus 


THE   PROPOSITION   STATED  11 

the  beneficiaries  of  the  act  are  brought  within  the 
"police  power"  of  the  State,  and  therefore,  it  is 
argued,  the  law  comes  within  the  limitations  of  the 
Federal  Constitution.  Experts  confess  that  it  is  more 
difficult  to  bring  men  under  the  same  protection,  but 
some  of  the  most  learned  authorities  claim  that  it 
can  be  done.  Tins  was  attempted  in  the  Wisconsin 
bill  prepared  by  Professor  Commons.  A  section  of 
that  bill  says:  "All  employment  property  is  hereby 
declared  to  be  affected  with  a  public  interest  to  the 
extent  that  every  employer  shall  pay  to  every  em- 
ployee in  each  oppressive  employment  at  least  a  liv- 
ing wage."  An  "oppressive  employment"  is  defined 
in  the  "Wisconsin  bill  as  "an  occupation  in  which 
employees  are  unable  to  earn  a  living  wage." 

The  Argument  for  a  Minimum  Wage. 

Prof.  Henry  R.  Seager,  of  Columbia  University,  is 
the  president  of  the  American  Association  for  Labor 
Legislation,  and  in  that  capacity  he  recently  delivered 
an  address  which  probably  gives  as  good  an  argument, 
in  concrete  form,  in  favor  of  the  legal  minimum  wage 
as  can  be  found.  Generalizing  on  his  argument,  he 
declared  that  "in  the  United  States  to-day  the  great 
majority  of  our  industries  pay  living  wages  to  the 
great  majority  of  the  workers  they  employ.  Starva- 
tion wages,  when  encountered,  are  due  to  exceptional 
circumstances  which  justify  extraordinary  remedies. 
Under  these  circumstances  a  rigidly  enforced  require- 
ment that  living  wages  at  least  shall  be  paid  to  all 
workers  will  merely  put  a  stop  to  the  profits  of  the 


12  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

exploiting  type  of  employer,  who  pays  his  hands 
less  than  they  are  fairly  worth  to  him,  or  hasten  a 
more  economical  distribution  of  the  available  labor 
force,  or  compel  society  to  face  squarely  and  make 
adequate  provision  for  classes  which  can  not  be  and 
should  not  be  required  to  be  self-supporting.  A  mini- 
mum wage  requirement  would  cause  the  individuals 
who  are  incapable  of  earning  living  wages  to  stand 
out  clearly  as  unemployables  for  whose  benefit  society 
must  organize  labor  exchanges,  provide  ampler  fa- 
cilities for  industrial  training,  and  develop  wise  sys- 
tems of  social  insurance.  These  results  should  prove 
nearly  if  not  quite  as  important  as  the  gain  in  effi- 
ciency— not  to  speak  of  happiness — for  the  workers 
insured  a  living  wage,  and  the  lessening  of  that 
greatest  disgrace  of  our  civilization,  prostitution  in 
aid  of  wages." 

In  answer  to  the  objections  commonly  urged 
against  the  proposal,  Professor  Seager  maintained  that 
the  system  was  in  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  Amer- 
ican institutions,  that  it  would  not  lead  to  Socialism, 
but  would  help  to  make  Socialism  unnecessary,  and 
that  there  was  no  ground  in  reason,  or  in  the  experi- 
ence of  the  States  of  Australasia  having  the  system, 
for  fearing  that  all  wages  would  be  forced  down 
toward  the  legal  minimum.  Finally,  he  admitted  the 
serious  practical  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  enforce- 
ment of  minimum  wage  regulations,  but  he  pointed 
out  that  great  progress  toward  the  better  enforce- 
ment of  labor  laws  was  being  made  all  over  the 
United   States,  and  he  insisted  that  the  most  con- 


THE   PROPOSITION   STATED  13 

elusive  answer  to  practical  objections  is  the  fact  that 
other  countries  are  actually  making  minimum  wage 
regulations  effective. 

The  motto  of  the  association  of  which  Professor 
Seager  is  president  is,  "The  fundamental  purpose  of 
labor  legislation  is  the  conservation  of  the  human  re- 
sources of  the  Nation."  It  is  now  a  largely  accepted 
axiom  of  political  economists — as  also  of  the  trade 
unionists  of  America  and  England — that,  so  far  as 
material  things  go,  wages  are  the  prime  factor  in  de- 
termining the  status  of  working  people.  One  of  the 
famous  essays  in  economics  for  which  prizes  were 
given  is  by  Frank  Hatch  Streightoff,  entitled  The 
Standard  of  Living.  After  enumerating  the  many 
proposals  and  undertakings  for  ameliorating  the  con- 
dition of  American  workpeople,  Mr.  Streightoff  says, 
"Probably,  however,  it  is  the  wage  question  which  is 
the  crux  of  the  entire  labor  problem."  In  this 
declaration  Mr.  Streightoff  is  merely  echoing  what 
Macaulay  declares  in  his  History  of  England  (Chap- 
ter 3),  "The  great  criterion  of  the  state  of  the  com- 
mon people  is  the  amount  of  their  wages." 

Is  it  "Socialistic?" 

The  most  common  objection  to  the  legal  minimum 
wage  is  that  it  is  "Socialistic"  legislation.  So  it  is; 
but  that  fact  by  itself  has  no  terrors  for  those  who 
understand  the  difference  between  real  Socialism — 
"Collectivism" — and  social  reform.  Bismarck  Avas 
one  of  the  Old- World  statesmen  who  understood  the 
difference ;  Lloyd  George,  of  England,  is  another  who 


14  THE   MINIMUM   WAGE 

makes  the  differentiation,  although  his  Tory  critics 
denounce  him  as  being  at  heart  a  genuine  Socialist. 
It  is  true  that  in  their  National  platform  the  Socialists 
declare  for  a  minimum  wage,  as  one  of  their  "im- 
mediate demands,"  just  as  they  do  for  a  shorter 
■working  day.  It  is  also  true  that  the  Socialists  look 
upon  the  minimum  wage  simply  as  one  of  the  step- 
ping stones  to  full  "Collectivism;"  so  they  do  as  to 
the  ownership  by  municipalities  of  waterworks  and 
street  railroads,  and  the  operation  by  the  Federal 
Government  of  the  parcels  post. 

It  is  worth  noting  in  this  connection  that  the 
author  of  one  of  the  standard  American  books  in 
favor  of  the  minimum  wage  ( A  Living  Wage)  is  a 
Catholic  priest — Rev.  John  A.  Ryan,  professor  of 
economics  at  the  St.  Paul  Seminary.  It  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  that  Father  Ryan  is  not  a  Socialist. 
In  his  book  he  takes  occasion  to  say  that  he  "does 
not  believe  that  Socialism  is  either  practicable  or 
desirable."  Indeed,  there  are  many  who  look  upon 
the  establishment  of  an  all-round  minimum  wage  as 
the  only  alternative  to  Socialism.  Father  Ryan  claims 
that  Pope  Leo  XIII  formulated  the  doctrine  of  the 
minimum  wage  in  his  celebrated  encyclical,  "Rerum 
Novarum, ' '  when  he  said :  ' '  Let  it  be  granted,  then, 
that  as  a  rule  workman  and  employer  should  make 
agreements,  and  in  particular  should  freely  agree 
as  to  wages;  nevertheless,  there  is  a  dictate  of  nature 
more  imperious  and  more  ancient  than  any  bargain 
between  man  and  man,  that  the  remuneration  must 
be  enough  to  support  the  wage  earner  in  reasonable 


THE   PROPOSITION   STATED  15 

and  frugal  comfort.  If  through  necessity,  or  fear  of 
a  worse  evil,  the  workman  accepts  harder  conditions 
because  an  employer  or  contractor  will  give  him  no 
better,  he  is  the  victim  of  fraud  and  injustice."  And 
so,  also,  as  Father  Ryan  observes,  numerous  and  able 
representatives  of  the  leading  Protestant  denomina- 
tions have  frequently  protested  against  the  doctrine 
of  "unlimited  bargaining"  as  to  wages,  and  among 
them  he  names:  Kingsley,  Maurice,  Hughes,  and 
Headlam,  in  England;  Pastors  Stocker  and  Todt,  in 
Germany ;  Gide  and  Waddington,  in  France,  and 
Bishop  Potter  and  Dr.  Gladden,  Columbus,  Ohio,  in 
the  United  States. 

But  these  authorities,  conclusive  as  they  may  be 
as  to  the  moral  obligation  of  employers  to  pay  a 
living  wage,  can  not  be  accepted  as  settling  the  ques- 
tion of  the  wisdom  of  the  State  forcibly  establishing 
a  legal  minimum  wage  covering  the  entire  industrial 
field. 

A  Many-sided  Question. 

As  will  be  clearly  demonstrated  in  subsequent 
chapters,  the  proposition  is  not  a  simple  one  by  any 
means;  it  Mall  be  shown  that  there  are  many  view- 
points about  it,  and  evidence  will  be  presented  that 
there  is  considerable  variance  of  opinion  as  to  the 
desirability  and  practicability  of  a  general  legal  mini- 
mum wage  under  conditions  as  they  exist  in  the 
United  States;  and  that,  too,  among  those  who  are 
strenuously  in  favor  of  a  living  wage,  including  trade 
unionists,  and  that  even  where  the  system  has  been 


16  THE   MINIMUM   WAGE 

established  testimony  differs  as  to  its  successful  opera- 
tion. 

It  would  seem  that  many  of  those  who  advocate 
the  principle  fail  to  distinguish  between  ethics  and 
humanity  on  one  side,  and  economics  and  practical 
administration  on  the  other,  and  that  they  confuse 
the  economic  doctrine  of  a  living  wage  with  that  of 
a  compulsory  minimum  wage  fixed  by  law  as  a  uni- 
versal code.  Even  among  the  most  eminent  and  best- 
informed  of  men  there  is  great  difference  of  opinion. 
For  instance,  President  Wilson  doubts  the  efficacy  of 
a  minimum  wage,  law  and  hazards  the  suggestion 
that  the  minimum  wage  would  likely  become  the  maxi- 
mum, to  which  Ex-President  Roosevelt  replies  that 
"the  objection  is  purely  academic."  Yet  no  less  an 
authority  than  Samuel  Gompers,  the  president  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  opposes  a  legal 
minimum  wage  for  the  very  reason  given  by  President 
Wilson. 

New  Zealand  is  said  to  be  "the  land  without 
strikes,"  under  compulsory  arbitration  and  the  mini- 
mum wage.  But  such  a  characterization  of  that  won- 
derful land  of  experimental  industrial  democracy  is 
not  exactly  true — indeed,  so  much  of  an  experiment 
is  the  system  still  that  it  was  only  four  or  five  years 
ago  that  there  was  danger  of  the  entire  complicated 
fabric  tumbling  down  and  being  thrown  on  the  scrap- 
heap  of  discarded  legislative  lumber. 

In  other  words,  there  are  several  sides  to  this  as 
to  most  questions;  and,  furthermore,  there  are  de- 
grees of  agreement  as  there  are  modifications  of  oppo- 
sition. 


CHAPTER  II 
The  Minimum  Wage  in  New  Zealand 

The  Pioneer. 

Although  the  system  of  State  regulation  of  wages 
is  many  centuries  old,  New  Zealand  made  the  first 
practical  attempt  in  modern  times  to  establish  mini- 
mum wages  by  law.  This  was  in  1894.  The  original 
law  was  passed  really  to  settle  by  compulsory  arbi- 
tration the  labor  troubles — strikes  and  lock-outs — then 
common,  and  which  threatened  to  "arrest  the  proc- 
esses of  industry."  The  outcome  has  been  something 
not  contemplated,  for,  under  the  law  as  amended, 
questions  of  wages,  hours  of  labor,  and  the  relations 
between  employers  and  workmen  generally  have  be- 
come subject  to  State  regulation.  The  law  is  very 
complicated,  and  has  been  frequently  amended.  Pro- 
vision is  made  for  the  incorporation  of  trade  unions 
and  associations  of  employers.  Disputes  go  to  a 
court  of  arbitration,  consisting  of  two  persons  repre- 
senting employers  and  two  representing  workmen  re- 
spectively, and  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court.  The 
awards  of  the  Court  are  enforceable  by  legal  process, 
penalties  up  to  $2,000  being  recoverable. 

A  well-known  New  Zealand  journalist,  Mr.  Guy 
H.  Scholefield,  has  written  a  most  entertaining  book, 
New  Zealand  in  Evolution,  in  which  he  speaks  very 
favorably  on  the  whole  of  the  State  regulation  of 

s  17 


18  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

industrialism ;  but  he  does  not  pronounce  it  an  un- 
qualified success.  Pie  says :  ' '  The  fixing  of  wages  and 
hours  of  work  by  a  legal  authority  has  certainly  had 
some  of  the  'leveling  tendency'  which  was  predicted, 
but  the  minimum  wage  is  not  by  any  means  the  maxi- 
mum, as  casual  observers  are  prone  to  believe."  Mr. 
Scholefield  concedes  that  under  the  restriction  of 
the  number  of  apprentices — which  is  part  of  the  sys- 
tem—" most  of  the  lower  trades  have  been  starved." 
In  1908,  owing  to  great  dissatisfaction  with  the  law, 
radical  changes  were  made  in  it. 

Says  Mr.  Scholefield:  "Long  before  the  end  of 
1907  they  [the  workers]  had  thrown  to  the  winds 
the  last  shred  of  their  respect  for  the  arbitration  act, 
the  Court,  and  the  members  themselves.  The  old  reign 
of  recrimination  returned."  In  New  Zealand  the 
experience  has  been  the  same  as  in  Australia  in  this 
respect — that  when  the  Court  grants  a  demand  of  the 
workmen  for  an  increase  of  wages  "everything  is 
lovely,"  but  that  when  such  a  demand  is  refused  the 
Court  is  abused  and  sometimes  defied,  notwithstand- 
ing the  compulsory  arbitration  feature  of  the  law. 

Strikes  in  New  Zealand. 

Again  quoting  the  author  of  New  Zealand  in  Evo- 
lution on  this  phase  of  the  situation:  "The  judge 
was  accused  of  partiality.  .  .  .  This  was  every- 
day language  in  1907  and  1908.  Revolt  was  in  the 
air.  Even  a  staid  conference  of  farmers,  enraged  pos- 
sibly by  the  action  of  a  conciliation  board  in  calling 
four  hundred  witnesses  and  incurring  $15,000  in  ex- 


IN  NEW  ZEALAND  19 

penses  in  investigating  a  farm  laborers'  dispute  [the 
board  finding  that  the  trouble  was  caused  by  pro- 
fessional agitators],  called  upon  the  Government,  'in 
view  of  the  failure  of  the  act  to  prevent  strikes  and 
the  unfair  and  weak  manner  in  which  it  was  admin- 
istered,' to  repeal  it.  The  tramway  [street-car]  em- 
ployees in  the  city  of  Auckland  went  on  strike  for 
the  second  time  in  six  months,  and  a  special  board 
of  conciliation — the  first  ever  invoked  under  the  orig- 
inal act — was  finally  set  up  to  deal  with  the  case." 
In  the  spring  of  1908  there  was  a  strike  of  coal 
miners — without  justification,  according  to  Mr.  Schole- 
field.  "Short  of  personal  violence,  all  the  old-time 
strike  methods  were  adopted.  ...  If  the  men's 
cause  had  been  a  good  one,  the  act  would  certainly 
have  been  wrecked."  The  Court  fined  the  miners' 
union  $375  for  striking.  But  the  miners  successfully 
defied  the  judgment  of  the  Court,  and  when  their 
goods  and  chattels  were  seized  to  satisfy  the  judgment 
the  miners  treated  the  sale  as  a  joke,  and  the  whole 
of  the  articles  disposed  of  only  brought  three  dollars. 
The  men  were  out  for  eleven  weeks,  but  public  opinion 
was  against  them  and  they  finally  yielded  under  de- 
feat. There  was  also  a  strike  of  the  bakers  in  Well- 
ington, and  they  refused  to  accept  the  judgment  of 
the  Court.  Mr.  Scholefield  admits,  "The  failure  of 
the  law  to  prevent  strikes  was  proved."  So  amend- 
ments were  made  in  1908  which  were  drastic  against 
strikers.  Specific  fines  were  provided  for  participa- 
tion in  strikes  or  lockouts  by  workers  or  employers. 
Inciting  to  strikes  or  lockouts,  aiding  or  abetting  and 


20  THE    MINIMUM  WAGE 

assisting  with  money  are  made  penal  offenses,  and  if 
more  than  half  the  members  of  a  union  are  involved 
the  union  is  deemed  to  be  the  instigator  and  is  de- 
prived of  registration,  which  means  that  it  loses  the 
benefits  of  industrial  agreements,  and  especially  of 
preference  in  employment,  which  is  one  of  the  peculiar 
features  of  the  New  Zealand  and  Australian  laws  pro- 
viding for  compulsory  arbitration  and  the  minimum 
wage. 

The  Encyclopedia  Britannica  (new  edition)  says 
of  this  New  Zealand  law,  "As  a  method  of  putting 
an  end  to  labor  disputes  its  success  has  only  been 
partial."  But  Dr.  Victor  S.  Clark,  who  made  an 
investigation  for  the  United  States  Government  in 
1903,  reported  that  "with  all  its  apparent  defects 
the  act  is  a  success  beyond  the  expectation  of  many 
of  its  early  supporters."  So  Charles  Edward  Russell, 
the  Socialist  writer,  in  his  Uprising  of  the  Many, 
speaks  of  the  act  as  one  that  has  "rid  New  Zealand 
of  strikes  and  brought  capital  and  labor  to  mark  time 
together." 

In  1907  the  British  Government  sent  an  expert, 
Mr.  Ernest  Aves,  to  study  the  New  Zealand  and 
Australian  systems.  He  remained  away  investigating 
for  nine  months.  His  report  was  rather  conservative, 
and  is  considered  impartial.  It  is  quoted  both  by 
friends  and  opponents  of  compulsory  arbitration  and 
the  legal  minimum  wage.  Among  other  things,  Mr. 
Aves  reported  that  "I  think  the  evidence  is  con- 
clusive that  present  conditions  in  New  Zealand  are 


IN  NEW  ZEALAND  21 

tending,  so  far  as  adult  male  workers  are  concerned, 
and  over  a  wide  field,  toward  a  lower  efficiency." 

This  conclusion  is  an  important  one,  because  it 
is  generally  held  by  political  economists  favorable  to 
the  legal  minimum  wage,  that  to  be  successful  it 
must  be  accompanied  by  increased  efficiency.  Pro- 
fessor Holcombe,  of  Harvard  University,  who  is  an 
advocate  of  the  minimum  wage,  declares  in  the 
American  Economic  Review  (March,  1912),  that 
"the  State  which  assumes  the  responsibility  for  the 
establishment  of  a  minimum  wage  must  also  assume 
the  responsibility  for  the  establishment  of  a  minimum 
standard  of  efficiency." 

In  the  Yale  Revieiv,  Volume  19,  is  the  following 
statement  by  Paul  Kennady,  after  speaking  of  the 
great  legislative,  judicial,  and  executive  powers  of 
the  New  Zealand  Arbitration  Court:  "In  its  early 
days  its  awards  were  generally  in  favor  of  the  workers 
in  their  demands — now  for  shorter  hours,  now  for 
more  pay,  or  again  for  enforcement  of  fines  against 
employers  for  breaches  of  the  act  or  of  awards.  Later 
the  men  were  not  so  successful,  and  now  the  point 
seems  to  have  been  reached  where  little  more  in  the 
direction  of  wage  increase  may  be  looked  for." 

For  the  American  student  who  desires  to  see  the 
situation  from  the  different  viewpoints,  the  best  work 
is  State  Socialism  in  New  Zealand,  a  joint  produc- 
tion of  Prof.  James  Edward  Le  Rossingnol,  of  the 
University  of  Denver,  Colo.,  and  William  Downie 
Stewart,  a  barrister  of  New  Zealand.    The  following 


22  THE   MINIMUM  WAGE 

extracts  and  statements,  in  a  condensed  form,  are 
taken  from  this  volume : 

By  an  amendment  of  1908  the  Arbitration  Court 
is  expressly  authorized  to  refuse  to  make  an  award 
petitioned  for  if  for  any  reason  it  considers  it  de- 
sirable to  do  so.  "In  most  of  the  awards  a  mini- 
mum wage  is  granted;  and  this  is  never  a  bare  sub- 
sistence minimum,  but  rather  an  ideal  wage  such  as 
an  able-bodied  worker  of  average  ability  ought  to 
earn;  and  it  has  generally  been  fixed  at  a  point 
higher  than  the  average  wages  prevailing  in  the  trade 
at  the  time  the  award  was  made. 

"One  important  effect  of  the  establishment  of  so 
high  a  minimum  wage  is  that  workers  of  less  than 
average  ability  find  it  hard  to  obtain  constant  em- 
ployment. This  difficulty  has  been  partially  met  by 
granting  under-rate  permits  to  such  workers.  But 
most  workers,  other  than  old  men,  do  not  like  to  be 
branded  as  incompetent,  so  that  not  many  under-rate 
permits  are  applied  for  or  granted." 

Does  the  Minimum  Become  the  Maximum? 

As  to  the  question  whether  the  minimum  wage 
is  likely  to  become  the  maximum,  the  testimony  is 
confusing.  ' '  The  most  reasonable  conclusion  that  one 
can  draw  from  these  facts  in  relation  to  the  theory 
stated  above,  which  certainly  has  some  validity,  is 
that  the  minimum  wages  awarded  in  most  of  the 
trades  are  not  high,  and  that  the  average  worker 
fully  earns  the  award  rate,  and  that  it  pays  the 


IN  NEW  ZEALAND  23 


employer  in  most  cases  to  give  higher  wages  to  better 
men.  .  .  .  But  where  the  minimum  is  placed  too 
high  there  must  be  a  tendency  toward  a  leveling 
down  of  wages,  which  can  not  but  be  discouraging 
to  the  more  efficient  worker,  and  injurious  to  the 
industrial  efficiency  of  the  Dominion." 

As  the  law  now  stands  the  Court  gives  preference 
to  trade  unionists  as  to  employment,  provided  that 
they  are  equally  competent  as  the  non-unionists,  and 
the  unions  are  not  "a  close  guild,"  but  are  open  to 
every  workman  of  good  character  who  desires  to  join. 
But  the  unionists  are  not  satisfied,  and  are  now  de- 
manding that  Parliament  amend  the  law  so  as  to 
give  them  unconditional  preference ;  this,  however, 
the  Government  is  opposed  to  granting. 

Prof.  Le  Rossingnol  and  Mr.  Stewart  say  in  their 
joint  work: 

"The  doctrine  of  a  living  wage  is  nothing  but 
a  starting  point  for  the  workers  of  New  Zealand. 
They  demand  a  living  wage  and  as  much  more  as 
they  can  get.  Realizing  the  fact  that  some  employers 
can  afford  to  pay  more  than  others,  the  workers  de- 
sire that  some  form  of  profit-sharing  be  established 
by  the  Arbitration  Court.  But  the  Court  has  re- 
peatedly stated  that  profit-sharing  could  not  be  taken 
as  the  basis  of  awards  on  the  ground  that  it  would 
involve  the  necessity  of  fixing  differential  rates  of 
wages,  which  would  lead  to  confusion,  would  be  un- 
fair to  many  employers,  and  unsatisfactory  to  the 
workers  themselves.     ...     In  practice,  the  awards 


24  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

appear  to  be  based  on  two  main  principles:  First, 
the  desire  and  intention  of  the  Court  to  secure  a 
living  wage  to  all  able-bodied  workers.  Second,  the 
desire  of  the  Court  to  make  a  workable  award.  That 
is,  to  grant  as  much  as  possible  to  the  workers  with- 
out giving  them  more  than  the  industry  can  stand." 
The  tendency  seems,  now  that  the  scope  of  the 
system  has  been  widely  extended,  to  "abide  by  estab- 
lished conditions,"  to  prevent  serious  disturbance  to 
industry.  An  elaborate  statistical  examination  of 
profits  and  wages  shows  that  any  but  the  smallest 
further  increases  in  wages  "would  destroy  the  very 
source  from  which  the  profits  are  drawn,"  and  our 
authors  observe  that  this  statement  is  but  a  step  to 
the  position  that  wages  are  determined  chiefly  by 
economic  laws.  "It  is  not  easy  to  show  that  com- 
pulsory arbitration  (which  includes  the  question  of 
the  minimum  wage)  has  greatly  benefited  the  workers 
of  the  Dominion.  Sweating  has  been  abolished,  but 
it  is  a  question  whether  it  would  not  have  disap- 
peared in  the  years  of  prosperity  without  the  help 
of  the  Arbitration  Court.  Strikes  have  been  pre- 
vented, but  New  Zealand  never  suffered  much  from 
strikes,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  workers  might  have 
gained  as  much,  or  more,  by  dealing  directly  with 
their  employers  as  by  the  mediation  of  the  Court. 
As  to  wages,  it  is  generally  admitted  that  they  have 
not  increased  more  than  the  cost  of  living."  Various 
reasons  are  given  for  the  increased  cost  of  living, 
one  largely  held  being  the  awards  of  the  Arbitration 
Court  fixing  high  wages.     ' '  Manufacturers  complain 


IN  NEW  ZEALAND  25 

that  the  awards  have  been  so  favorable  to  the  workers 
as  to  make  it  difficult  to  compete  with  British  and 
foreign  manufacturers,  and  demand  that  either  the 
arbitration  system  be  abolished  or  that  they  be  given 
increased  protection  by  increased  duties  on  imported 
goods.  It  is  claimed  that  the  growth  of  manufac- 
tures has  not  kept  pace  with  the  growth  of  popula- 
tion and  the  importation  of  manufactures  from 
abroad."  Authorities  are  quoted  for  the  statement 
that  industrial  enterprise  in  New  Zealand  has  been 
checked  to  a  considerable  extent  by  the  labor  laws, 
that  but  few  new  industries  are  started,  and  that 
investors  are  slow  to  put  their  money  into  industries 
in  which  labor  is  the  chief  item  in  expenditure.  Com- 
plaint is  also  made  that  "the  arbitration  system  has 
resulted  in  a  loss  of  industrial  efficiency  far  greater 
than  ever  resulted  from  strikes."  But  our  authors 
do  not  accept  without  qualifications  these  gloomy 
views. 

They  devote  a  chapter  to  an  elaborate  analysis 
of  wages  as  compared  with  the  cost  of  living  in  New 
Zealand  since  the  adoption  of  the  State  regulation 
of  industries.  A  contrast  is  made  with  conditions 
in  Denver,  Colo,  (the  home  of  Prof.  Le  Rossingnol), 
and  in  the  city  of  "Wellington,  the  capital  of  New  Zea- 
land. The  conclusion  the  authors  come  to  is  "that, 
while  the  cost  of  living  is  somewhat  less  in  Welling- 
ton than  in  Denver,  the  wages  of  labor  are  consider- 
ably higher  in  Denver,  and  the  Denver  laborer  is 
better  off  than  his  brother  in  Wellington." 


2G  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

Testimony  of  an  American  Expert. 

A  highly  interesting  review  of  labor  conditions 
generally  in  New  Zealand  is  given  by  Dr.  Victor  S. 
Clark  in  Bulletin  No.  49  of  the  United  States  Bureau 
of  Labor.  Considerable  space  is  devoted  to  the  sys- 
tem of  compulsory  arbitration  with  the  minimum 
wage  provisions  incidental  thereto.  The  verdict  of 
this  American  expert  is  very  guarded  and  is  full  of 
qualifications.  As  to  the  legal  minimum  wage  being 
more  beneficial  to  the  New  Zealand  worker  than 
"collective  bargaining"  is  to  the  American  trade 
unionist,  the  most  favorable  judgment — based  on  Dr. 
Clark's  report — is  that  the  evidence  is  inconclusive; 
and,  indeed,  the  evidence  is  inconclusive  as  to  whether, 
in  the  long  run,  compulsory  arbitration  and  the  legal 
minimum  wage  have  not  been  as  much  a  detriment 
as  a  benefit  to  the  employees  as  well  as  to  the  em- 
ployers and  the  State  at  large.  And  yet,  as  Dr.  Clark 
says,  the  fact  that  this  legislation  remains  on  the 
statute  book,  after  much  criticism  and  amendment,  is 
proof  that  there  are  some  "good  points  in  the  law 
that  helped  to  reconcile  people  to  the  novel  restric- 
tions it  imposed." 

Referring  to  the  fact  that  men  work  harder  in 
America  than  in  New  Zealand,  Dr.  Clark  says: 
"Still,  the  practical  effect  of  the  minimum  wage 
awards  in  the  organized  trades  in  New  Zealand  has 
made  it  as  hard  for  the  man  sinking  below  the  line 
of  average  efficiency  to  get  employment  as  in  Amer- 
ica; and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  old-age  pensions 


IN  NEW  ZEALAND  27 

of  between  $7  and  $8  a  month  compensate  him  for 
the  possibilities  of  higher  savings  in  youth  and  the 
cheaper  living  in  the  latter  country."  Dr.  Clark 
remarks  that  there  appears  to  be  a  larger  proportion 
of  home  owners  among  American  workmen  than 
among  those  of  New  Zealand. 

As  to  whether  the  minimum  wage  becomes  the 
maximum,  Dr.  Clark  presents  many  witnesses  both 
for  and  against.  Careful  as  to  giving  his  own  opin- 
ion, he  notes  that  there  has  not  been  any  special 
improvement  in  wages  during  the  last  preceding  three 
years  (this  was  in  1903),  and  that  the  established 
legal  wages  of  skilled  craftsmen  are  the  average  paid. 
He  says  that  it  is  practically  the  unanimous  testi- 
mony of  employers  that  their  men  do  not  work  as 
well  under  the  minimum  wage  as  before.  It  is  rather 
significant,  in  a  country  where  the  Government  is 
the  largest  single  employer  of  labor,  that  "ca'  canny" 
or  "go  easy" — or  intentional  soldiering  on  a  job — 
is  almost  universally  known,  both  among  workmen 
and  employers,  as  "the  Government  stroke;"  and 
"there  is  pretty  definite  evidence  to  the  effect  that 
the  Government  stroke  does  exist  at  times  in  certain 
industries,  and  that  it  is  occasionally  encouraged  or 
suggested  by  conditions  created  through  the  awards. ' ' 

The  testimony  is  emphatic  that  the  minimum  wage 
law  in  New  Zealand,  as  in  Australia,  "throws  the 
slow  worker  and  the  semi-competent  wage  earner  out 
of  employment."  Up  to  the  present  this  kind  of 
labor  has  been  given  employment  upon  the  public 


28  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

works,  as  a  sort  of  "outdoor  relief;"  but  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  of  evasion  of  the  law  in  both  coun- 
tries: "men  got  the  minimum  wage,  but  handed  back 
a  portion  to  their  employer."  Dr.  Clark  expresses 
the  opinion  that  in  America,  with  our  enormous  in- 
flux of  immigrants  whose  standard  of  living  is  a  low 
one,  this  difficulty  would  be  vastly  increased. 


CHAPTER  III 

In  Australia 

"Wage  Boards." 

Coming  to  the  island-continent  of  Australia,  the 
movement  dates  back  to  1884,  when  a  Royal  Com- 
mission for  the  Colony  of  Victoria  on  "sweated"  in- 
dustries reported  in  favor  of  Courts  of  Conciliation, 
"whose  procedure  and  awards  shall  have  the  sanc- 
tion and  authority  of  law."  In  1896  the  Factories 
and  Shop  act  was  passed,  it  including  a  wage-board 
system.  Originally  it  only  applied  to  the  trades  of 
butchering,  bread-making,  furniture,  and  clothing, 
but  it  has  been  extended  to  include  practically  every 
trade,  and  the  act  now  forms  a  complete  industrial 
code,  in  which  the  principle  of  State  regulation  of 
wages  is  recognized  and  established.  Boards  are 
created,  consisting  of  an  equal  number  of  representa- 
tives of  employers  and  workmen  respectively  in  any 
trade,  under  the  presidency  of  an  independent  chair- 
man. A  special  board  may  be  formed  on  request  of 
any  association  of  employers  or  union  of  workmen, 
or  on  the  initiative  of  the  Labor  Department.  After 
hearing  evidence  the  board  issues  a  "determination" 
fixing  the  minimum  rate  of  wages  to  be  paid  to 
various  classes. 

There  is  no  attempt  in  the  Victorian  law  at  a 
29 


30  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

statutory  definition  of  a  "living  wage."  In  fact, 
this  negative  feature  is  characteristic  generally  of 
the  several  laws  in  New  Zealand  and  the  different 
States  in  the  Australian  Commonwealth.  In  1903  the 
Victorian  law  was  amended  so  as  to  provide  that 
the  determination  of  wages  should  be  based  on  "the 
average  prices  or  rates  of  payment  paid  by  reputable 
employers  to  employees  of  average  capacity."  The 
word  "reputable"  was  construed  as  "best-paying." 
But  this  method  was  found  to  work  very  unsatis- 
factorily, and  so  in  1907  the  boards  were  given  com- 
plete discretion  in  the  fixing  of  the  minimum  wage. 
They  can  fix  wages  not  only  for  those  receiving  less 
than  standard  rates,  but  can  also  fix  the  lowest  law- 
ful rates  for  skilled  and  other  highly  paid  grades, 
and  even  for  industries  in  which  there  are  no  wage 
earners  below  the  living  wage  level.  There  are  now 
nearly  one  hundred  special  boards,  regulating  wages 
and  hours  of  labor  for  nearly  all  the  wage  earners 
of  Victoria,  both  men  and  women.  The  Victorian 
boards  are  "trade"  boards  as  distinct  from  "dis- 
trict" boards.     Apprentices  are  included. 

Laws  similar  to  the  Victorian  system  were  passed 
in  South  Australia  in  1900,  and  in  Queensland  in 
1908. 

The  States  of  New  South  Wales  and  Western 
Australia  followed  the  New  Zealand  plan  instead  of 
that  of  Victoria.  In  the  first-named  State  the  law 
was  passed  in  1901.  As  in  New  Zealand,  it  created 
"conciliation  boards,"  but,  as  there,  they  were  found 
to  work  unsatisfactorily.     So  in  1908  the  law  was 


IN  AUSTRALIA  31 

changed  so  as  to  institute  an  Arbitration  Court,  con- 
sisting of  a  president  and  assessors  representing  the 
employers'  associations  and  the  workers'  unions  re- 
spectively. In  any  trade  in  which  a  dispute  occurs 
any  association  or  union  registered  under  the  act 
has  the  right  to  briDg  the  matter  before  the  Court, 
and,  if  the  Court  makes  an  award,  it  can  be  made  a 
"common  rule,"  which  becomes  binding  over  the 
trade  affected.  These  "common  rules"  mostly  relate 
to  wages  and  hours  of  labor.  The  act  forbids  strikes, 
but  the  prohibition  is  occasionally  defied,  even  against 
awards. 

The  law  in  "Western  Australia  more  closely  fol- 
lows that  in  New  Zealand  than  does  the  act  in  New 
South  "Wales.  In  "Western  Australia,  as  elsewhere, 
the  conciliation  boards  originally  created  were  fail- 
ures, and  in  1903  were  abandoned,  the  especial  reason 
being  that  they  did  not  prevent  strikes.  Yet  in  1907, 
under  the  amended  law,  there  was  a  serious  strike 
in  the  timber  trade. 

In  all  this  legislation  in  New  Zealand  and  in  the 
Australian  States,  one  of  the  most  hotly-contested 
points  has  been  whether  the  Arbitration  Court  should 
be  given  power  to  declare  that  trade  unionists  should 
be  given  preference  in  employment  over  non-union- 
ists. This  power  was  given  to  the  tribunal  in  New 
South  Wales,  but  was  withheld  in  Western  Australia. 

In  the  Commonwealth  (Australia  as  an  entirety) 
a  difficulty  similar  to  that  experienced  in  the  United 
States  in  such  matters  was  encountered,  each  Aus- 
tralian State  being  supreme  in  this  kind  of  legislation 


32  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

within  its  own  confines,  so  long  as  certain  broad  prin- 
ciples of  Federal  power  are  not  violated.  The  result 
is  that  there  are  different  laws  in  different  States 
of  the  Commonwealth,  and  there  has  been  difficulty 
in  bringing  interstate  industry  and  commerce  in  har- 
mony with  the  varying  laws  of  the  several  States 
affected.  For  a  number  of  years  a  fierce  agitation 
prevailed  throughout  the  Commonwealth  over  the 
proposition  to  establish  a  Federal  law  regulating  in- 
dustry, and  the  controversy  caused  the  defeat  of 
several  ministries.  In  1904  the  Commonwealth  Par- 
liament passed  a  Conciliation  and  Arbitration  Act. 
In  regard  to  the  much-disputed  point  as  to  prefer- 
ence to  trade  unionists,  a  compromise  was  reached ; 
power  to  give  such  preference  was  conferred,  with 
qualifying  conditions.  This  Federal  tribunal  differs 
from  those  in  the  several  States  inasmuch  as  it  con- 
sists of  a  single  member,  called  "the  President,"  he 
being  appointed  by  the  Governor-General  from  among 
the  justices  of  the  High  (Supreme)  Court.  The 
president  has  power  to  appoint  assessors  to  aid  him. 
He  has  considerable  authority  to  effect  settlements 
by  conciliatory  methods.  It  is  said  that  members  of 
the  Supreme  Court  have  a  great  dislike  for  assign- 
ments to  this  duty,  owing  to  the  practice  of  the  trade 
unions  of  violently  denouncing  Courts  which  decide 
against  them,  particularly  as  the  idea  is  growing  in 
Australia  and  New  Zealand  that  there  is  an  increas- 
ing tendency  for  the  minimum  wage  to  become  the 
maximum. 


IN  AUSTRALIA  33 

An  English  Observer. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive  books 
on  Australia  is  by  John  Foster  Fraser,  an  English 
journalist  and  traveler,  Australia — the  Making  of 
a  Nation.  While  giving  credit  to  the  arbitration  and 
minimum  wage  law  for  improving  the  condition  of 
the  workers,  he  says,  ''The  unfortunate  fact  remains 
that  the  law  can  be  operative  against  an  employer 
if  he  refuses  to  comply  with  an  award,  whilst  it  is 
practically  inoperative  in  the  case  of  workmen  who 
ignore  it."  He  confirms  other  reports  that  the  work- 
men hail  with  approval  awards  benefiting  them,  but 
that  they  denounce  Arbitration  Courts  when  the  de- 
cisions are  against  them.  As  to  preference  to  trade 
unionists,  which  is  part  of  the  system,  Mr.  Fraser 
gives  this  instance:  "A  Mr.  Wildman  wanted  a 
workman.  Two  applied.  He  chose  the  non-unionist 
because  in  his  opinion  he  was  a  more  competent  man 
than  the  unionist.  For  doing  this  he  was  fined  two 
pounds  ($9.74)  and  two  guineas  ($10)  costs,  and  the 
Arbitration  judge  told  him  that  it  was  the  Arbitra- 
tion Court,  and  not  the  employer,  who  must  decide 
as  to  the  relative  competency  of  employees.  The 
consequence  of  all  this  legislation  is  to  create  the 
most  unpleasant  relationship  between  employers  and 
employed.  ...  I  saw  a  bitterness,  a  vindictive- 
ness,  almost  a  savagery,  between  class  and  class, 
which,  happily,  in  Great  Britain,  with  all  our  in- 
dustrial complications,  we  are  very  little  acquainted 
with.     These  compulsory  Arbitration  Courts,  having 


34  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

for  their  object  the  amicable  settlement  of  differences, 
have  promoted  strife." 

It  must  be  kept  in  mind  that  in  several  of  the 
Australian  States,  as  in  New  Zealand,  compulsory 
arbitration  is  part  of  the  system  of  which  the  mini- 
mum wage  is  another  part,  along  with  preference  for 
trade  unionists.  There  are  occasions  when  the  trade 
unionists  rebel  against  compulsory  arbitration  as 
well  as  against  decisions  not  to  advance  wages;  then 
the  farmer  voters — who  can,  if  they  choose,  control 
the  situation — say,  "Very  well,  we  will  take  away 
trade  union  preference,  and  will  leave  compulsory 
arbitration  in  the  law,  and  provide  penalties  to  make 
you  obey  the  decisions  of  the  Court." 

Mr.  Fraser  asserts  that  the  complicated  system 
in  Australia  is  an  interference  with  personal  liberty, 
and  that  many  of  the  regulations  are  absurd.  As  for 
example,  a  groom  is  not  allowed  to  make  any  repairs 
on  a  piece  of  harness,  however  slight.  "Men  not 
trade  unionists  have  the  utmost  difficulty  in  getting 
employment.  Employers  have  been  called  upon  to 
dismiss  nonunionists  who  are  good  men,  and  then 
when,  for  the  sake  of  peace,  the  men  have  expressed 
their  willingness  to  join  the  union,  they  have  "beeK 
told  the  books  are  closed.  .  .  .  The  preference 
clause  in  the  New  South  Wales  act  amounts  to  the 
law  of  the  land  being  utilized  for  furthering  political 
purposes  rather  than  to  improve  industrial  condi- 
tions. The  trade  unions  practically  dictate  the  labor 
laws.  Yet  only  a  small  minority  of  the  working 
men  of  Australia  belong  to   trade  unions.     Things 


IN  AUSTRALIA  35 

go  even  further,  for  an  employer  is  not  always 
allowed  to  decide  what  workman  he  should  employ." 

Dr.  Victor  S.  Clark,  the  American  expert,  in  an 
article  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics  (Vol- 
ume 24,  1910),  referring  to  the  law  as  recently 
amended,  says:  "The  new  Wages  Board  is  more 
popular  with  employers  than  was  its  predecessor,  but 
it  is  less  popular  with  workingmen."  Dr.  Clark 
elsewhere  says:  "The  law  has  not  eradicated  the 
evils  it  was  designed  to  meet,  but  nevertheless  it 
appears  to  have  mitigated  them.  Few,  if  any,  strikes 
have  occurred  where  wage  determinations  are  in 
force." 

Ernest  Aves,  who  made  an  investigation  for  the 
British  Government  in  1907,  reported,  "The  boards, 
especially  those  formed  in  the  women's  trades,  are 
greatly  valued  and  are  widely  believed  in." 

There  are  two  observations  pertinent  to  these  con- 
clusions: Dr.  Clark's  report  is  based  on  a  visit  to 
Australia  in  1905,  but  subsequent  to  that  visit  serious 
trouble  arose,  and  it  was  found  necessary  to  radically 
amend  the  law,  and  it  is  rather  early  yet  to  pro- 
nounce a  correct  judgment  as  to  the  success  or  other- 
wise of  the  amended  law.  To  a  certain  extent  this 
is  true  of  the  British  report,  and  then  the  latter 
refers  more  especially  to  industries  that  were 
"sweated."  Formerly,  owing  to  cheap  Chinese  labor, 
a  number  of  industries  in  Australia  were  "sweated." 
It  was  largely  because  of  this  state  of  things  that 
the  agitation  for  a  minimum  wage  developed.  It  is, 
however,   now   an   open   question   with   many   trade 


36  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

unionists  whether  the  improvement  of  labor  condi- 
tions in  well-organized  skillful  occupations  in  New 
Zealand  and  Australia  is  to  be  attributed  to  the  laws 
or  to  the  unions  themselves  and  to  natural  good  times 
from  purely  physical  causes;  that  is,  except  as  to 
' 'sweated"  industries  and  employment  of  women  and 
minors,  there  is  some  doubt  whether  the  special 
features  of  compulsory  arbitration,  preference,  and 
minimum  wage  have  secured  any  more  advantages  to 
skilled  labor  than  could  have  been  obtained  by  the 
usual  methods  of  organization,  voluntary  wage  scales 
and  agreements  and  arbitration,  as  practiced  in  Eng- 
land, the  United  States,  and  Canada. 

A  Native  Critic. 

Australian  Socialism  is  the  title  of  a  book  written 
by  A.  St.  Ledger,  a  Senator  from  the  State  of 
Queensland  in  the  Parliament  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Senator  St.  Ledger  is  frankly  an  anti-Socialist,  and 
he  claims  that  the  Australian  Labor  party  have  made 
it  an  aim  to  profess  Continental  Socialism  on  the 
platform  "and  to  suppress  it  in  Parliament  (State 
and  Federal )  in  order  to  hold  the  balance  of  power. ' ' 
He  declares  that  the  Labor  party  of  Australia  "are 
being  irresistibly  borne  along  with  the  tide  of  Social- 
ism. If  they  do  not  know  it,  the  Socialists  do." 
The  Senator  claims  that  neither  in  Australia  nor 
anywhere  else  is  there  "sufficient  data  yet  to  de- 
termine clearly  whether  this  legislation  (State  con- 
trol of  industries)  has  benefited  or  injured  the 
worker."     He  does  not  take  issue  with  legislation 


IN  AUSTRALIA  37 

regulating  shops  and  factories,  including  the  sup- 
pression of  sweating.  He  holds  that  this  is  "  solely 
humanitarian,"  while  the  State  regulation  of  in- 
dustries generally  "is  solely  economic,  and  sooner  or 
later  must  conform  to  the  law  of  supply  and  demand 
and  the  economic  limitations  of  a  country's  re- 
sources." He  denounces  Socialism  in  Australia  as 
apparently  preparing  "to  set  up  a  political  and  par- 
liamentary despotism  such  as  Australia  has  not  yet 
seen,  and  for  which  the  only  parallels  in  history 
are  the  oligarchies  of  Greece  and  Rome  in  ancient 
times,  and  Venice  and  Genoa  in  modern  times." 
And  he  proceeds  to  say,  "After  all,  Australian  So- 
cialism is  far  more  the  creation  of  low-down  par- 
liamentary intrigue  than  the  deliberate  expression 
of  public  opinion."  He  gives  this  warning,  speaking 
of  Australia:  "No  country  in  any  era  of  its  civili- 
zation, excepting  China,  has  so  enveloped  freedom  be- 
tween employer  and  employee  with  legislative  limi- 
tations, nor  so  strongly  subordinated  freedom  of  con- 
tract for  the  individual  to  the  mere  fiat  of  a  majority 
of  the  workers.  Australia  has  disregarded  the  warn- 
ings of  the  ages  in  this,  as  in  other  similar  experi- 
ments. It  will  certainly  afford  either  a  striking  lesson 
or  an  awful  moral."  He  points  out  the  fact,  familiar 
to  every  student,  that  Socialists  look  upon  this  class 
of  legislation  as  "a  half-way  house  to  the  nationaliza- 
tion of  industries." 

Senator  St.  Ledger  declares:  "The  verdict  so 
far  is  against  and  not  in  favor  of  the  experiments. 
At  any  rate,  it  is  clear  that  the  long-continued  work 


38  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

of  this  laboratory  has  given  only  negative  results. 
One  experiment  has  just  ended  in  almost  accepted 
failure:  the  method  of  compulsory  conciliation  and 
arbitration.  But  the  operation  of  the  wage  boards 
shows  far  more  hopeful  results.  In  these  the  ele- 
ment of  compulsion  is  either  absent  or  has  this  limi- 
tation, that  if  after  experience  it  is  shown  that  the 
minimum  wage  is  higher  than  the  average  worker 
can  earn  on  his  output  the  employer  can  dispense 
with  the  less-efficient  worker,  and  engage  only  those 
who  reach  the  standard.  The  worker  then  may  get 
a  permit  to  take  a  less  wage.  He  is  thus  confronted 
with  two  forms  of  fear.  His  union  looks  upon  him 
as  a  drag  upon  the  standard  limit,  or  as  a  species  of 
loafer,  whose  wants  and  ambitions  are  easily  satisfied, 
and  whose  work  is  subordinated  entirely  to  this  meas- 
ure of  them.  The  issue  of  these  permits  is  almost 
always  accompanied  with  an  inquisitorial  investiga- 
tion, which  must  be  more  or  less  irritating  to  the 
unions,  and  humiliating  to  the  individuals  seeking 
them." 

Senator  St.  Ledger  emphasizes  the  fact  that  the 
establishment  of  the  wage  boards  synchronized  with 
an  improvement  of  natural  physical  conditions;  that 
is,  bounteous  harvests  followed  a  period  of  drought. 
He  also  gives  figures  from  the  official  Labor  Gazette 
showing  that  the  increased  wages  under  the  boards 
were  closely  followed  by  increases  in  the  cost  of  liv- 
ing; and  he  casts  doubt  on  the  assumption  that  the 
wage  boards  and  compulsory  arbitration  have  ma- 


IN  AUSTRALIA  39 

terially   improved    the   credit   side   of   the   workers' 
weekly  balance  sheet. 

Our  senatorial  author  insists  that  so  far  it  has 
not  been  demonstrated  that  the  workers  have  bene- 
fited by  this  Socialistic  legislation,  and  he  predicts 
that  if  the  Socialists  do  not  "make  good"  their  claim 
in  this  respect  the  political  pendulum  will  swing 
backward. 

Sidney  Webb's  Commendation. 

Sidney  Webb,  of  England,  the  acknowledged 
greatest  living  authority  on  trade  unionism  and  labor 
legislation  and  an  advocate  of  a  National  minimum 
wage,  had  an  article  in  the  Journal  of  Political  Econ- 
omy (Chicago  University)  of  December,  1912,  on 
"The  Economic  Theory  of  a  Legal  Minimum  Wage." 
Speaking  of  the  results  in  Victoria,  Australia,  he 
says:  "In  the  five  sweated  trades  to  which  the  law 
was  first  applied  sixteen  years  ago  wages  have  gone 
up  from  twelve  to  thirty-five  per  cent,  the  hours  of 
labor  have  invariably  been  reduced,  and  the  actual 
number  of  persons  employed,  far  from  falling,  has 
in  all  cases,  relatively  to  the  total  population,  greatly 
increased.  .  .  .  Little  remains  now  outside  its 
scope  except  the  agricultural  occupations  and  do- 
mestic service.  .  .  .  Certainly  no  statesman,  no 
economist,  no  political  party,  nor  any  responsible 
newspaper  in  Victoria,  however  much  a  critic  of  de- 
tails, ever  dreams  now  of  undoing  the  minimum  wage 
law  itself." 


40  THE   MINIMUM   WAGE 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  Professor  Webb 
came  to  the  latter  conclusion,  for  there  is  certainly 
much  opposition  in  both  New  Zealand  and  Australia 
to  the  entire  scheme  of  State  Socialism,  including 
compulsory  arbitration  and  the  minimum  wage. 
Whatever  merit  there  is  in  a  legal  minimum  wage, 
the  best  observers  unite  in  saying  that  Australia  has 
not  yet  worked  out  the  problem — it  is  still  very  much 
in  an  experimental  stage.  Unfortunately,  the  true 
issue  has  been  obscured  by  the  fact  that  the  New 
Zealand  and  Australian  systems  have  been  made 
political  questions.  The  only  men  well  organized  po- 
litically have  been  those  in  favor  of  State  Socialism. 
Until  recently  this  element  has  been  all  powerful, 
but  it  has  within  the  last  four  years  met  several 
rebuffs,  for  the  Labor-Socialist  party  is  really  a  small 
minority  of  the  total  voters.  Lately  the  farmers  have 
taken  to  organization.  On  this  phase  of  the  situ- 
ation Dr.  Clark  says  ("Labor  Conditions  in  Aus- 
tralia," Bulletin  No.  56,  United  States  Bureau  of 
Labor) : 

"This  is  especially  true  in  Victoria,  where  farm- 
ers' leagues  have  been  organized  and  an  active  cam- 
paign is  being  conducted  antagonistic  to  Socialism 
and  labor  doctrines.  Until  the  influence  of  the 
farmer  has  had  time  to  be  felt  in  Australia  we  shall 
know  very  little  as  to  the  relative  forces  at  work 
for  and  against  Socialistic  legislation.  The  predic- 
tion one  would  naturally  venture  is  that  the  result 
will  be  practical  compromises,  upon  the  whole,  satis- 
factory to  a  majority  of  the  workingmen,  which  will 


IN  AUSTRALIA  41 

throw  over  many  of  the  theoretical  ideals  and  prin- 
ciples of  the  Socialist  political  economy." 

New  Problems  Introduced. 

The  truth  seems  to  he  that  by  the  establishment 
of  the  legal  minimum  wage,  new  problems  of  indus- 
trial distress  have  been  created.  If  a  "fair  wage" 
is  fixed  as  the  minimum,  employers  insist  on  taking 
on  only  the  quickest  and  most  efficient  workers,  and 
as  a  consequence  the  less  competent  employees  and 
the  aged  and  the  slow  workers  are  thrown  out  of 
employment;  whereas,  if  a  "true  minimum  wage"  is 
fixed  "it  has  been  found  that  advantage  is  taken  of 
this  situation  to  force  down  the  prevailing  wage  to 
the  level  of  the  board  determination." 

Dr.  Clark  makes  this  comment:  "These  are  two 
horns  of  the  dilemma  presented  by  any  attempt  to 
fix  wages  by  legislative  authority,  whether  by  arbi- 
tration or  by  minimum  wage  boards — and  it  can  not 
candidly  be  said  that  much  progress  has  been  made 
as  yet  toward  a  solution  of  this  difficulty  in  any  of 
the  Australasian  countries." 

Further  on  Dr.  Clark  shows  how  the  law  has  had 
a  reactionary  effect,  in  that  it  has  retarded  the  natural 
evolution  to  properly  supervised  factories  and  has 
driven  the  slow  or  semi-competent  workmen — unable 
to  secure  employment  at  the  regular  minimum  wage — 
into  attic  shops,  where  they  make  wares  which  they 
peddle  around  at  starvation  prices  to  the  less  scrupu- 
lous jobbers.  "The  whole  question  of  the  effect  of 
the    law   upon    industrial    development,"    says    Dr. 


42  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

Clark,  "must  be  considered  an  open  one,  for  there 
are  so  many  disturbing  factors  in  the  problem  at 
present  that  any  one  of  a  score  of  different  opinions 
upon  the  matter  may  be  the  right  one." 

It  has  been  found  that  the  system  of  granting 
permits  to  slow,  incompetent,  or  aged  workers  to 
accept  less  than  the  minimum  wage  is  not  a  sufficient 
remedy  for  the  situation.  After  quoting  a  number 
of  official  reports  supporting  this  statement,  Dr. 
Clark  observes: 

"It  is  perhaps  worthy  of  passing  mention  as  evi- 
dencing how  the  problem  of  industrial  regulation 
grows  upon  the  hands  of  the  authorities  as  soon  as 
it  is  once  undertaken  by  the  Government,  that  the 
only  solution  of  the  difficulties  mentioned  that  sug- 
gests itself  to  the  Inspector  (the  State  Inspector  of 
Factories)  is,  'To  provide  work  at  remunerative 
wages  for  men  able  to  work,  and  old-age  pensions 
for  the  old  workers.'  In  other  words,  the  outcome 
of  regulative  legislation — the  only  means  by  which  it 
can  accomplish  even  its  most  modest  objects  success- 
fully— would  be  State  Socialism." 

In  addition  to  repayment  of  part  of  the  minimum 
wage  to  the  employer  by  the  workers,  another  way 
of  evading  the  law  is  for  the  employer  to  sell  the 
raw  material  to  workmen,  on  credit,  they  manufac- 
turing the  goods  and  disposing  of  them  to  the  em- 
ployer at  a  stipulated  cheap  rate. 

Dr.  Clark  says  that  while  some  manufacturers 
speak  well  of  the  system,  the  business  community 
generally  is  opposed  to  it.    There  is  a  great  deal  of 


IN  AUSTRALIA  43 

uncertainty  as  to  the  next  step  of  a  Socialistic  na- 
ture which  will  be  taken,  the  result  being  that  there 
is  a  lack  of  enterprise  in  New  Zealand  as  compared 
with  the  United  States. 

It  is  surprising  that  such  an  authority  as  Sidney 
Webb  should  assume — as  he  does — that  the  problem 
of  the  legal  minimum  wage  has  been  solved  in  Aus- 
tralia and  New  Zealand.  A  more  correct  assumption 
is  that  the  whole  problem  is  still  in  a  state  of  ex- 
perimentation. 


CHAPTER  IV 

State  Regulation  of  Wages  in  England 

An  Old  Question. 

As  England  is  the  place  of  origin  of  most  of  the 
theories  which  form  the  basis  of  so-called  Modern, 
Scientific  Socialism,  so  it  is  England  which  made  the 
first  practical  experiments  in  the  State  regulation  of 
industries,  including  wages,  leaving  out  of  considera- 
tion classical  times.  In  this  connection  Macaulay 
makes  some  observations  in  his  History  of  England 
which  are  pertinent  in  these  "progressive"  days: 
"The  more  carefully  we  examine  the  history  of  the 
past,  the  more  reason  shall  we  find  to  dissent  from 
those  who  imagine  that  our  age  has  been  fruitful  of 
social  evils.  The  truth  is  that  the  evils  are,  with 
scarcely  an  exception,  old.  That  which  is  new  is 
the  intelligence  which  discerns  and  the  humanity 
which  remedies  them." 

Direct  legislation  regulating  wages  dates  back  to 
1349  in  England,  during  the  reign  of  Edward  III. 
The  population  had  been  much  reduced  by  the 
plague ;  there  was  a  demand  for  labor,  and  the  work- 
men naturally  demanded  more  wages.  Some  of  the 
chronicles  of  the  times  declare  that  in  certain  in- 
stances the  wages  demanded   were  exorbitant,   and 

44 


IN  ENGLAND  45 


considering  the  purchasing  power  of  money,  they 
seem  in  some  cases  in  excess  of  those  which  are  paid 
even  in  these  days.  However  this  may  be,  the  au- 
thorities determined  to  place  a  limit  on  wages,  and 
that  limit  was  far  below  what  the  laborers  and  skilled 
workmen  were  demanding.  The  preamble  of  this 
remarkable  statute  recited:  "Because  a  great  part 
of  the  people,  and  especially  of  workmen  and  serv- 
ants, lately  died  of  the  pestilence,  many,  seeing  the 
necessity  of  masters  and  great  paucity  of  servants, 
will  not  serve  unless  they  may  receive  excessive 
wages. ' ' 

It  Mas  provided  that  wages  asked  for  and  paid 
should  not  be  higher  than  they  had  been  several 
years  before  the  plague.  This  was  unjust,  because 
the  price  of  food  and  other  necessaries  had  advanced. 
But,  to  somewhat  balance  the  low  figures  at  which 
the  maximum  wages  were  fixed,  dealers  were  required 
to  sell  provisions  at  reasonable  prices.  It  appears, 
however,  that  some  of  the  laborers  and  workmen 
came  to  an  understanding  with  each  other  not  to 
accept  less  than  a  certain  wage — in  some  cases  double 
and  treble  what  they  had  been  paid.  So  two  years 
afterward  an  amendment  was  made  in  the  statutes, 
fixing  a  scale  of  wages  not  only  for  farm  hands,  but 
for  all  classes  of  skilled  workmen.  This  statute  of 
King  Edward  is  remarkable  in  that  it  is  the  first 
time  in  England  that  cognizance  was  taken  of  free 
laborers  for  hire.  It  not  only  fixed  wages,  but  cov- 
ered generally  the  relations  of  the  laborer  to  his 
master. 


46  THE   MINIMUM   WAGE 

"Statute  of  Laborers." 

This  law  remained  in  force,  with,  many  amend- 
ments, until  1563,  when  the  famous  "Statute  of 
Elizabeth"  was  passed.  The  laws  of  1349  and  1563, 
with  their  amendments,  constitute  what  is  known  as 
"The  Statute  of  Laborers,"  the  Elizabethan  law  be- 
ing a  codification  as  well  as  an  amendment  of  all 
previous  legislation  on  the  subject.  The  Statute  of 
Laborers  is  the  most  historic  and  complete  code 
regulating  industry  ever  enacted.  King  Edward's 
statute  was  avowedly  for  the  purpose  of  compelling 
laborers  and  craftsmen  to  work  for  a  lower  wage 
than  they  demanded,  and  the  general  purpose  of 
the  law  was  to  limit  the  freedom  of  action  of  the 
work  people.  The  Elizabethan  statute,  however,  had 
as  one  of  its  objects  the  amelioration  of  the  hard 
conditions  of  the  wage  earners.  "The  Statute  of 
Apprentices,"  which  is  included,  legislated  to  "yield 
unto  the  hired  person,  both  in  time  of  scarcity  and 
in  time  of  plenty,  a  convenient  proportion  of  wages," 
and  heavy  penalties  were  provided  for  violation. 

The  Elizabethan  statute  recited  that  its  passage 
was  "chiefly  for  that  the  wages  and  allowances  lim- 
ited and  rated  in  many  of  the  said  statutes  are  in 
divers  places  too  small  and  not  answerable  to  this 
time,  respecting  the  advancement  of  prices  of  all 
things  to  the  said  servants  and  laborers;  the  said 
laws  can  not  conveniently,  without  the  great  grief 
and  burden  of  the  poor  laborer  and  hired  man,  be 
put  to  good  and  true  execution."  This  act  regu- 
lated the  terms  of  service,  the  hours  of  labor,  and  the 


IN  ENGLAND  47 


fixing  of  wages  by  the  Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  had 
minute  provisions  respecting  every  phase  of  the  em- 
ployment of  servants,  laborers,  apprentices,  and 
skilled  workmen. 

George  Howell,  formerly  a  member  of  the  British 
Parliament  and  an  advocate  of  old-fashioned  Trade 
Unionism  as  opposed  to  the  Socialist  tendency  of 
the  present-day  labor  movement — he  taking  much  the 
same  position  that  Samuel  Gompers  does  in  this  coun- 
try— and  a  recognized  authority  on  the  subject,  has 
an  illuminating  chapter  on  the  State  regulation  of 
industrialism  in  his  Trade  Unionism,  Old  and  New. 
Speaking  of  the  Elizabethan  "Statute  of  Laborers," 
Mr.  Howell  says:  "Taking  into  account  the  times 
and  circumstances,  the  previous  action  of  the  guilds, 
their  ordinances  and  regulations,  the  legislation  that 
had  been  enacted,  and  the  general  conditions  of  in- 
dustry at  that  stage  of  our  history,  it  was  an  ideal 
code  of  labor  law,  protecting  at  once  the  hired  worker 
and  apprentice  and  the  master  by  whom  they  were 
employed. ' ' 

State  Regulation  Condemned. 

The  Elizabethan  code  became  the  parent  of 
numerous  acts  passed  in  later  reigns,  covering  a 
period  of  250  years,  and  Mr.  Howell  makes  the  fol- 
lowing observations,  which  are  instructive  at  this 
period,  when  so  many  reformers  are  seeking  to 
establish  a  radical  system  of  State  regulation  over 
the  entire  field  of  industrialism  • 

"The  State  having  once  entered  upon  the  wiM- 


48  THE   MINIMUM  WAGE 

goose  chase  of  attempting  to  regulate  labor,  thereby 
restraining  the  development  of  the  individual  in  the 
pursuit  of  his  own  welfare,  it  found  no  halting  place. 
As  new  industries  arose,  the  law  had  to  be  extended. 
Each  fresh  discovery  and  invention  was  more  or  less 
handicapped  in  its  application  to  industry.  Capital 
was  fettered,  employers  were  harassed  and  hampered, 
and  manufacturers  were  impeded  by  such  laws;  and, 
worse  than  all,  they  afforded  but  scant  protection 
to  the  workmen.  It  so  happened,  however,  that  the 
latter  sought  to  perpetuate  them,  because  they  feared 
that  by  repeal  they  would  fare  worse  than  under 
the  law.  The  capitalists  and  employers,  on  the  con- 
trary, sought  their  repeal,  and  for  about  two  cen- 
turies the  contest  raged  fiercer  and  fiercer,  on  the 
one  side  for  the  retention  of  the  laws,  and  on  the 
other  for  their  repeal.  .  .  .  But  there  was  no 
halting  place.  Finis  was  nowhere  written  at  the  end 
of  any  chapter.  .  .  .  Industry  groaned  under  the 
weight  of  regulation,  restriction,  and  control.  There 
was  a  revolt  against  it,  first  by  one  party,  and  then 
by  the  other,  as  it  suited  them,  or  as  the  nature  of 
the  industry  demanded.  It  almost  looked,  at  one 
period,  as  if  the  whole  trade  of  the  country  would 
be  crushed  beneath  the  load  of  legislation ;  and  it 
Avould  have  been  had  not  other  countries  been  simply 
stupid  as  regards  the  same  kind  of  legislation,  or  at 
least  such  legislation  as  compassed  nearly  the  same 
ends." 

Mr.  Howell  notes  the  fact  that  there  is  an  agi- 


IN  ENGLAND  49 


tation  to  return  to  this  policy,  and  he  makes  these 
comments : 

"If  a  cure  for  this  frenzy  be  possible,  probably 
the  best  cure  will  be  a  careful  perusal  of  the  legisla- 
tion prior  to  the  commencement  of  the  present  cen- 
tury, and  a  careful  study  of  its  effects.  It  nearly 
killed  our  early  trade,  and  nearly  starved  our  peo- 
ple. It  needs  no  prophet  to  foretell  that  the  same 
results  would  follow  if  such  laws  were  re-enacted." 

In  1728  the  Gloucestershire  weavers  induced  the 
Justices  of  the  Peace  to  fix  a  liberal  scale  of  wages, 
and  in  1756  Parliament  passed  an  act  providing  for 
the  fixing  of  piece-work  by  the  Justices  to  prevent 
wage-cutting  and  underselling.  But  from  that  time 
the  tendency  of  Parliament  was  to  adopt  a  policy 
of  laissez-faire.  In  1795,  1800,  and  1808  the  hand- 
loom  weavers  tried  to  get  Parliament  to  establish 
a  minimum  wage,  but  the  Committee  to  which  the 
proposition  was  referred  reported  that  it  was  "wholly 
inadmissible  in  principle,  incapable  of  being  reduced 
to  practice  by  any  means  which  can  possibly  be 
devised,  and,  if  practicable,  would  be  productive  of 
the  most  fatal  consequences."  In  1805  the  Glasgow 
Court  of  Sessions  fixed  a  scale  for  printers,  and 
again  in  1812  declared  that  the  Magistrates  were 
competent  under  the  law  to  fix  a  scale  for  cotton 
weavers.  But  in  1813  the  "pernicious"  law — as  it 
was  called  by  its  opponents — was  peremptorily  re- 
pealed. In  1814  the  apprenticeship  clause  was  re- 
pealed,   and   a   Parliamentary    Committee   declared: 


50  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

"The  right  of  every  man  to  employ  the  capital  he 
inherits,  or  has  acquired,  according  to  his  own  dis- 
cretion, without  molestation  or  obstruction,  so  long 
as  he  does  not  infringe  on  the  rights  of  others,  is 
one  of  those  privileges  which  the  free  and  happy 
Constitution  of  this  country  has  long  accustomed 
every  Briton  to  consider  as  his  birthright." 

Not  only  in  England,  but  throughout  Western 
and  Southwestern  Europe,  wages  were  legally  regu- 
lated, directly  or  indirectly,  during  the  Middle 
Ages. 

The  English  "Trades  Boards." 

The  establishment  of  "Trades  Boards"  or  "Wage 
Boards"  in  England  to  meet  certain  conditions  in 
modern  industrialism  is  quite  recent.  For  many 
years  there  had  been  an  outcry  against  "sweated" 
labor — that  is,  employment  under  abnormally  low 
wages  and  long  hours,  with  unsanitary  surround- 
ings, although  usually  the  term  is  now  used  spe- 
cifically to  the  first-named   condition. 

In  1906  a  "sweated  industrial  exhibition"  was 
held  in  England,  and  the  nation  was  shocked  by 
the  revelations.  In  1907  a  Select  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Commons  unanimously  reported  in 
favor  of  the  establishment  of  wage  boards  in  various 
sweated  trades.  In  the  same  year  Mr.  Ernest  Aves, 
an  expert  of  the  British  Government  Board  of  Trade, 
was  sent  to  Australia  and  New  Zealand  to  investi- 
gate the  various  systems  in  operation  over  there. 
There  has  been  some  controversy  as  to  the  extent 


IN  ENGLAND  51 


of  the  approval  given  by  Mr.  Aves  to  those  systems; 
but  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not  feel  justified  in 
recommending  their  full  adoption  in  England.  He 
did,  however,  make  recommendations  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  Wage  Boards  to  a  certain  extent,  mod- 
eled something  after  the  system  in  Victoria. 

In  1908  a  Select  Committee  of  the  House  of 
Commons  recorded  its  opinion  "that  it  is  quite  as 
legitimate  to  establish  by  legislation  a  minimum 
standard  of  remuneration  as  it  is  to  establish  a 
standard  of  sanitation,  cleanliness,  ventilation,  air 
space,  and  hours  of  work." 

In  ,1909  the  British  Government  enacted  the 
Trades  Board  Act — going  into  effect  January  1,  1910 
— providing  for  the  establishment  of  boards  for  cer- 
tain trades,  to  fix  minimum  wages,  and  thus  to  pre- 
vent sweating. 

In  introducing  the  measure  the  spokesman  of  the 
Government  announced  that  he  could  not  hold  out 
any  hope  that  a  scheme  for  a  general  minimum 
wage  would  be  embarked  upon ;  and  he  declared  that 
the  effect  of  stereotyping  a  rate  of  wages  might  be 
to  bring  down  to  that  rate  the  wages  of  working- 
men  who  were  now  receiving  a  higher  sum — that  is, 
that  the  minimum  might  become  the  maximum,  the 
very  objection,  by  the  way,  raised  by  President  Wil- 
son in  his  argument  with  Colonel  Roosevelt. 

Mr.  Winston  Churchill  said  that  the  wages  of  the 
sweated  worker  bear  no  accurate  relation  to  the  ulti- 
mate price,  and  he  contended  that  decent  conditions 
made  for  industrial  efficiency.     Ex-Premier  Balfour 


52  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

admitted  that  in  some  sweated  trades  wages  could 
be  raised  without  increasing  the  ultimate  cost  to 
the  consumer. 

The  English  Act  provides  machinery  both  for 
deciding  and  enforcing  a  minimum  rate  of  wages. 
The  following  trades  came  under  the  operation  of 
the  Act  immediately  after  its  passage,  they  being 
by  general  consent  sweated  industries:  Ready-made 
and  custom  tailoring,  paper-box  making,  machine- 
made  lace,  net  finishing  and  mending,  and  lace  cur- 
tain finishing,  and  certain  kinds  of  chain  making. 
Women  are  largely  employed  in  all  of  these  indus- 
tries. The  Act  may  be  extended  by  the  Board  of 
Trade,  on  confirmation  by  Parliament,  to  other  in- 
dustries in  which  the  Board  is  satisfied  that  excep- 
tionally low  wages  are  paid  as  compared  with  other 
employments.  The  Trade  Boards  are  composed  of 
representatives  of  employers  and  employed  in  equal 
proportions  and  of  three  members  appointed  by  the 
Board  of  Trade,  one  of  the  latter  of  whom  must 
be  a  woman,  if  women  are  largely  employed  in  the 
particular  industry,  and  in  that  case  women  are  also 
eligible  for  selection  as  representatives  of  the  em- 
ployees. These  Boards  fix  the  minimum  wages  and 
give  public  notice  of  any  time-rate  or  piece-rate 
determined  upon.  These  rates  are  obligatory  in  the 
trades  concerned,  and  any  employer  paying  less  than 
the  minimum  rate  is  liable  to  a  fine  of  not  exceeding 
twenty  pounds,  and  to  a  further  fine  not  exceeding 
five  pounds  for  every  day  on  which  the  offense  is 
committed  after  conviction.    No  agreement  for  lower 


IN  ENGLAND  53 


wages  is  legal.  The  Board  of  Trade  has  power  to 
enter  workshops  and  inspect  wage  sheets. 

It  is  significant  that  many  employers  welcomed 
the  establishment  of  Trade  Boards,  they  confessing 
that  it  was  only  the  stress  of  severe  competition 
which  caused  them  to  give  the  low  wages  they  had 
been  paying,  and  they  arguing  that  if  all  were  com- 
pelled to  pay  living  wages  none  would  be  given  an 
unfair  advantage  or  placed  at  a  disadvantage,  as  the 
case  might  be. 

So  far  the  testimony  appears  to  be  practically 
unanimous  that  the  English  system  is  a  success  where 
it  has  been  applied.  In  an  article  in  the  American 
Economic  Review  for  March,  1912,  Mr.  E.  F.  Wise, 
of  Toynbee  Hall,  London,  says:  "There  is  every 
reason  to  be  satisfied  with  the  progress  at  present 
achieved.  Already  other  trades  are  clamoring  to  be 
included.  ».  .  .  There  is  every  indication  that  a 
weapon  has  been  forged  that  will  greatly  diminish, 
if  it  does  not  destroy,  one  of  the  worst  evils  of  our 
industrial  system." 

It  should  be  particularly  noted  that  the  deter- 
minations of  the  Trade  Boards  are  the  results  of 
"bargaining,"  and  are  not  based  on  the  cost  of  liv- 
ing or  a  standard  of  living,  but  are  affected  by  trade 
conditions.  There  is,  therefore,  variation  in  the  mini- 
mum fixed. 

For  Miners. 

The  British  Government  subsequently  passed  an 
act  providing  for  special  District  Boards  for  miners, 


54  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

owing  to  exceptional  conditions.  It  is  to  a  certain 
extent  an  adaptation  of  the  ' '  run-of -the-mine "  sys- 
tem contended  for  by  American  miners.  Some  Eng- 
lish miners  would  be  put  in  sections  of  the  mines 
where,  no  matter  how  hard  they  worked,  they  could 
not  earn  a  livelihood  when  their  wages  were  based 
on  the  quantity  of  commercial  coal  they  turned  out. 
The  miners  demanded  that  a  minimum  wage  of  five 
shillings  a  day  should  be  fixed  by  law,  but  the  Gov- 
ernment refused  to  do  this,  and  left  the  amount  to 
be  determined  by  the  District  Boards  according  to 
the  local  conditions. 

The  Century  Magazine  of  June,  1912,  says  that 
it  is  found  that  under  the  operation  of  this  law 
some  of  the  mines  can  not  be  operated  at  all,  and 
that  many  miners,  instead  of  having  a  minimum 
wage,  have  no  wage  at  all.  In  the  opinion  of  the 
Century  the  English  Government  has  played  into 
the  hands  of  the  Syndicalists,  whose  policy  is  to 
make  the  operation  of  the  mines  so  unprofitable  that 
the  owners  will,  *f rom  sheer  disgust,  turn  them  over 
to  the  workmen  to  operate  themselves  for  their  own 
profit. 

Special  Provisions  of  the  British  Acts. 

Following  are  important  special  provisions  of 
the  British  "anti-sweating"  minimum  wage  law, 
passed  20th  October,  1009,  and  going  into  effect  1st 
January,  1910: 

"The  Board  of  Trade  may  make  a  Provisional 
Order  applying  this  Act  to  any  specified  trade  to 


IN  ENGLAND  65 


which  it  does  not  at  the  time  apply  if  they  are 
satisfied  that  the  rate  of  wages  prevailing  in  any 
branch  of  the  trade  is  exceptionally  low,  as  com- 
pared with  that  in  other  employments,  and  that  the 
other  circumstances  of  the  trade  are  such  as  to  ren- 
der the  application  of  the  Act  to  the  trade  expe- 
dient. ' ' 

"Trade  Boards  shall,  subject  to  the  provisions 
of  this  section,  fix  minimum  rates  of  wages  for  time- 
work  for  their  trades,  and  may  also  fix  general  mini- 
mum rates  of  wages  for  piece-work  for  their  trades, 
and  those  rates  of  wages  (whether  time  or  piece- 
rates)  may  be  fixed  so  as  to  apply  universally  to  the 
trade,  or  so  as  to  apply  to  any  special  process  in 
the  work  of  the  trade  or  to  any  special  class  of 
workers  in  the  trade,  or  to  any  special  area." 

"If  a  Trade  Board  report  to  the  Board  of  Trade 
that  it  is  impracticable  in  any  case  to  fix  a  mini- 
mum time-rate  in  accordance  with  this  section,  the 
Board  of  Trade  may  so  far  as  respects  that  relieve 
the  Trade  Board  of  their  duty." 

"A  Trade  Board  may,  if  they  think  it  expedient, 
cancel  or  vary  any  minimum  time-rate  or  general 
piece-rate  fixed  under  this  Act,  and  shall  reconsider 
any  such  minimum  rate  if  the  Board  of  Trade  direct 
them  to  do  so,  whether  an  application  is  made  for 
the  purpose  or  not." 

"If  a  Trade  Board  are  satisfied  that  any  worker 
employed,  or  desiring  to  be  employed,  on  time-work 
in  any  branch  of  a  trade  to  which  a  minimum  time- 
rate  fixed  by  the  Trade  Board  is  applicable  is  af- 


56  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

fected  by  any  infirmity  or  physical  injury  which 
renders  him  incapable  of  earning  that  minimum 
time-rate,  and  are  of  the  opinion  that  the  case  can 
not  suitably  be  met  by  employing  the  worker  on 
piece-work,  the  Trade  Board  may,  if  they  think  fit, 
grant  to  the  worker,  subject  to  such  conditions,  if 
any,  as  they  prescribe,  a  permit  exempting  the  em- 
ployment of  the  worker  from  the  provisions  of  this 
Act  rendering  the  minimum  time-rate  obligatory, 
and,  while  the  permit  is  in  force,  an  employer  shall 
not  be  liable  to  any  penalty  for  paying  wages  to 
the  worker  at  a  rate  less  than  the  minimum  time- 
rate  so  long  as  any  conditions  prescribed  by  the 
Trade  Board  on  the  grant  of  the  permit  are  com- 
plied with." 

"Any  agreement  for  the  payment  of  wages  in 
contravention  of  this  provision  shall  be  void." 

Following  are  the  trades — as  officially  described — 
to  which  the  Act  applied  automatically  without  any 
Provisional  Order  from  the  Board  of  Trade,  which 
body,  it  should  be  explained,  is  a  Government  body 
similar  to  the  Department  of  Commerce  and  Labor 
of  the  United  States: 

1.  Ready-made  and  wholesale  bespoke  tailoring 
and  any  other  branch  of  tailoring  in  which  the  Board 
of  Trade  consider  that  the  system  of  manufacture 
is  generally  similar  to  that  prevailing  in  the  whole- 
sale trade. 

2.  The  making  of  boxes  or  parts  thereof  made 
wholly  or  partially  of  paper,  cardboard,  chip,  or 
similar  material. 


IN  ENGLAND  57 


3.  Machine-made  lace  and  net  finishing  and  mend- 
ing or  darning  operations  of  lace  curtain  finishing. 

4.  Hammered  and  dollied  or  tommied  chain-mak- 
ing. 

In  the  above  four  trades  women  and  girls  are 
almost  exclusively  employed. 

Following  are  some  important  provisions  of  the 
Act  passed  29th  March,  1912,  by  the  British  Parlia- 
ment, applicable  to  miners  of  coal  and  of  stratified 
ironstone — this  Act  to  remain  in  force  for  three 
years,  unless  Parliament  shall  otherwise  determine: 

"It  shall  be  an  implied  term  of  every  contract 
for  the  employment  of  a  workman  underground  in 
a  coal  mine  that  the  employer  shall  pay  to  that 
workman  wages  at  not  less  than  the  minimum  rate 
settled  under  this  Act  and  applicable  to  that  work- 
man, unless  it  is  certified  in  manner  provided  by 
the  district  rules  that  the  workman  is  a  person 
excluded  under  the  district  rules  from  the  operation 
of  this  provision,  or  that  the  workman  has  forfeited 
the  right  to  wages  at  the  minimum  rate  by  reason 
of  his  failure  to  comply  with  the  conditions  with 
respect  to  the  regularity  or  efficiency  of  the  work 
to  be  performed  by  workmen  laid  down  by  those 
rules;  and  any  agreement  for  the  payment  of  wages 
in  so  far  as  it  is  in  contravention  of  this  provision 
shall  be  void." 

"The  district  rules  shall  lay  down  conditions,  as 
respects  the  district  to  which  they  apply,  with  respect 
to  the  exclusion  from  the  right  to  wages  at  the  mini- 
mum rate  of  aged  workmen  and  infirm  workmen  (in- 


58  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

eluding  workmen  partially  disabled  by  illness  or  acci- 
dent), and  shall  lay  down  conditions  with  respect  to 
the  regularity  and  efficiency  of  the  work  to  be  per- 
formed by  the  workmen,  and  with  respect  to  the 
time  for  which  a  workman  is  to  be  paid  in  the  event  of 
any  interruption  of  work  due  to  an  emergency,  and 
shall  provide  that  a  workman  shall  forfeit  the  right 
to  wages  at  the  minimum  rate  if  he  does  not  comply 
with  conditions  as  to  regularity  and  efficiency  of 
work,  except  in  cases  where  the  failure  to  comply 
with  the  conditions  is  due  to  some  cause  over  which 
he  has  no  control." 

"Nothing  in  this  Act  shall  prejudice  the  opera- 
tion of  any  agreement  entered  into  or  custom  exist- 
ing before  the  passing  of  this  Act  for  the  payment 
of  wages  at  a  rate  higher  than  the  minimum  rate 
settled  under  this  Act,  and  in  settling  any  minimum 
rate  of  wages  the  joint  district  board  shall  have 
regard  to  the  average  daily  rate  of  wages  paid  to 
the  workmen  of  the  class  for  which  the  minimum 
rate  is  to  be  settled." 


CHAPTER  V 

The  Massachusetts  Law 

A  Conservative  Experiment. 

It  is  an  interesting  historical  fact  that  as  Massa- 
chusetts was  the  only  Colony  which  followed  the 
example  of  the  mother  country  in  prescribing  maxi- 
mum wages,  so  Massachusetts  is  the  only  State  so 
far  which  has  again  followed  England's  experiment 
in  establishing  minimum  wage  boards,  but  has  lim- 
ited it  to  women.* 

In  1633  the  General  Court  in  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colony  laid  down  that  carpenters,  sawyers,  masons, 
bricklayers,  tilers,  joiners,  wheelwrights,  mowers,  and 
other  master  workmen  should  not  receive  more  wages 
than  two  shillings  a  day,  without  board,  but  that  if 
the  workman  boarded  with  his  master  he  was  to 
receive  fourteen  pence  a  day.  The  wages  of  inferior 
workmen  were  to  be  fixed  by  the  constable.  Skilled 
tailors  were  to  be  paid  a  shilling  a  day;  poorer  ones, 
eight  pence.  The  law  was  frequently  amended,  and 
was  finally  repealed  as  being  a  failure. 

Following  a  unanimous  recommendation  for  a 
minimum  wage  by  the  International  Conference  of 
Consumers'  Leagues,  there  has  been  a  steadily  grow- 
ing movement  in  the  United  States  in  its  favor.    The 

*See  p.  85,  Note  on  Utah. 

59 


60  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

American  Consumers'  League  has  a  special  commit- 
tee on  Minimum  Wage  Boards,  of  which  Prof.  Arthur 
N.  Holcombe,  of  Harvard  University,  is  chairman. 

In  May,  1911,  the  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
adopted  a  resolution  providing  for  the  appointment 
by  the  Governor  of  a  commission  of  five  persons — 
one  of  whom  was  to  be  a  woman,  one  to  be  a  repre- 
sentative of  labor,  and  one  a  representative  of  the 
employers — "to  study  the  matter  of  the  employment 
•of  women  and  minors,  and  to  report  on  the  advisa- 
bility of  establishing  a  board,  or  boards,  to  which 
shall  be  referred  inquiries  as  to  the  need  and  feasi- 
bility of  fixing  minimum  rates  of  wages  for  women 
or  minors  in  any  industry."  The  commissioners 
were  to  serve  without  pay,  but  $2,000  were  provided 
for  expenses.  This  sum,  however,  was  insufficient, 
and  public-spirited  citizens  furnished  an  additional 
$2,000.  The  Governor  duly  appointed  the  commis- 
sion, and  it  made  its  report  in  January,  1912.  Stu- 
dents of  the  subject  consider  that  the  statistics  col- 
lected by  Massachusetts  are  the  best  of  any  State; 
but  they  were  not  found  adequate  enough,  and  the 
commission  had  to  mainly  rely  on  its  own  direct  in- 
quiries, in  which,  it  is  satisfactory  to  note,  it  "re- 
ceived the  sympathetic  co-operation  of  a  number  of 
employers,  who  placed  their  wage  sheets  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  investigators."  Owing  to  the  limitation 
of  time  and  money,  it  was  necessary  to  restrict  the 
study  to  a  few  occupations. 

The  report  gives  statistics  showing  that  of  women, 
41  per  cent  of  the  candy  workers,  10.2  per  cent  of 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  LAW  61 

the  saleswomen,  16.1  per  cent  of  the  laundry  workers, 
and  23  per  cent  of  the  cotton  workers  earn  less  than 
$5  a  week,  and  that,  respectively,  65.2  per  cent, 
29.5  per  cent,  40.7  per  cent,  and  37.9  per  cent  of 
them  earn  less  than  $6  a  week.  "In  these  four  in- 
dustries, therefore,  we  find  low  wage  rates  for  a  very 
considerable  number  of  persons."  The  commission 
notes  great  difference  of  women's  wages  in  factories 
of  the  same  grade.  This  difference  was  also  found 
in  stores. 

"In  the  stores,  indeed,  the  large  and  presumably 
prosperous  establishments  of  Boston  in  many  cases 
paid  a  lower  wage  than  was  paid  in  some  of  the  small 
suburban  establishments,  and  lower  wages  than  were 
paid  in  Brockton  or  Springfield.  .  .  .  In  so  far 
as  this  is  the  case  it  is  evidence  that  the  industry 
will  bear  a  higher  rate  of  compensation  than  some 
employers  pay.  These  latter,  because  of  inefficient 
management  or  because  they  are  making  unusual 
profits,  are  doing  business  at  the  expense  of  their 
employees.  These  inequalities  of  wages  in  the  same 
industry  are  evidence  of  the  fact  to  which  some  of 
the  more  thoughtful  employers  testified — that  the  rate 
of  wages  depends  to  a  large  degree  upon  the  per- 
sonal equation  of  the  employers  and  upon  the  help- 
lessness of  their  employees,  and,  to  a  very  inexact 
degree,  upon  the  cost  of  labor  in  relation  to  the  cost 
of  production." 

Referring  to  the  minimum  wage  systems  in  Eng- 
land, in  Australia,  and  New  Zealand,  the  Commis- 
sioners say:     "No  accurate  statement  can  be  made 


62  THE    MINIMUM   WAC4E 

as  to  the  effect  of  this  legislation  upon  wages,  and 
the  difference  in  social  and  economic  conditions  ren- 
ders comparisons  of  less  value.  Their  experiences, 
while  interesting  and  important,  are  not  conclusive." 
The  commission,  however,  recommended  the  estab- 
lishment of  wage  boards  something  after  the  English 
plan, 

Reasons  for  the  Law. 

The  proposed  legislation  was  recommended  for 
the  following  reasons,  and  these  reasons  were  pre- 
sented in  the  Ohio  Constitutional  Convention  last 
year  as  arguments  in  favor  of  the  amendment  au- 
thorizing the  Legislature  to  enact  a  minimum  wage 
law: 

1.  It  would  promote  the  general  welfare  of  the 
State,  because  it  would  tend  to  protect  the  women 
workers,  and  particularly  the  younger  women  work- 
ers, from  the  economic  distress  that  leads  to  impaired 
health  and  inefficiency. 

2.  It  would  bring  employers  to  a  realization  of 
their  public  responsibilities,  and  would  result  in  the 
best  adjustment  of  the  interests  of  the  employers  and 
of  the  women  employees. 

3.  It  would  furnish  to  the  women  employees  a 
means  of  obtaining  the  best  minimum  wages  that 
are  consistent  with  the  ongoing  of  the  industry,  with- 
out recourse  to  strikes  or  industrial  disturbances.  It 
would  be  the  best  means  of  insuring  industrial  peace 
so  far  as  this  class  of  employees  are  concerned. 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  LAW  63 

4.  It  would  tend  to  prevent  exploitation  of  help- 
less women,  and,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  to  do 
away  with  sweating  in  our  industries. 

5.  It  would  diminish  the  parasitic  character  of 
some  industries  and  lessen  the  burden  now  resting 
on  other  employments. 

6.  It  would  enable  the  employers  in  any  occu- 
pation to  prevent  the  undercutting  of  wages  by  less 
humane  and  considerate  competitors. 

7.  It  would  stimulate  employers  to  develop  the 
capacity  and  efficiency  of  the  less  competent  workers 
in  order  that  the  wages  might  not  be  incommensurate 
with  the  services  rendered. 

8.  It  would  accordingly  tend  to  induce  employers 
to  keep  together  their  trained  workers  and  to  avoid 
as  far  as  possible  seasonal  fluctuations. 

9.  It  would  tend  to  heal  the  sense  of  grievance 
in  employees,  who  would  become  in  this  manner  better 
informed  as  to  the  exigencies  of  their  trade,  and  it 
would  enable  them  to  interpret  more  intelligently  the 
meaning  of  the  pay  roll. 

10.  It  would  give  the  public  assurance  that  these 
industrial  abuses  have  an  effective  and  available 
remedy. 

The  Legislature  passed  a  law  which  was  prac- 
tically a  copy  of  one  drafted  by  the  commission, 
except  in  a  particular  noted  below.  The  law  was 
passed  last  June  and  takes  effect  on  the  first  of 
July,  1913. 


64  THE    MINIMUM  WAGE 

Provisions  of  the  Law. 

A  Minimum  Wage  Commission  is  established  for 
the  State,  consisting  of  three  persons — one  of  whom 
may  be  a  woman — to  be  appointed  by  the  Governor. 
Each  Commissioner  is  to  be  paid  $10  a  day  for  each 
day's  service  and  traveling  and  other  expenses.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  Commission  to  inquire  into  the 
wages  paid  to  the  female  employees  in  any  occupa- 
tion in  the  State  if  it  has  reason  to  believe  that  the 
wages  paid  to  a  substantial  number  of  such  em- 
ployees are  inadequate  to  supply  the  necessary  cost 
of  living  and  to  maintain  the  worker  in  health.  If, 
after  an  investigation,  this  should  be  demonstrated 
to  be  a  fact,  the  Commission  is  to  establish  a  Wage 
Board,  consisting  of  not  less  than  six  representatives 
of  employers  in  the  occupation  in  question  and  of  an 
equal  number  of  persons  to  represent  the  female  em- 
ployees in  the  occupation,  and  of  one  or  more  dis- 
interested persons  appointed  by  the  Commission  to 
represent  the  public,  but  the  representatives  of  the 
public  shall  not  exceed  one-half  of  the  number  of 
representatives  of  either  of  the  other  parties.  The 
Commission  shall  appoint  the  Chairman  of  the  Wage 
Board  from  among  the  representatives  of  the  public. 
The  members  of  the  Wage  Board  are  to  be  paid  the 
same  as  jurors.  When  two-thirds  of  the  members  of 
the  Wage  Board  shall  agree  upon  a  minimum  wage 
determination  they  must  report  it  to  the  State  Com- 
mission, together  with  the  names — as  far  as  they  can 
be  learned — of  employers  who  pay  less  than  the  mini- 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  LAW  65 

mum  wage  so  determined.  The  State  Commission 
can  approve  or  disapprove  of  the  determination. 

If  it  tentatively  approve  of  it  the  Commission  is 
to  order  a  public  hearing  in  which  the  employers 
can  be  heard;  and  if  after  this  hearing  the  Com- 
mission finally  confirms  the  Wage  Board's  determina- 
tion, it  is  to  enter  a  decree  which  establishes  the 
minimum  wage  in  that  particular  trade. 

The  original  investigating  Commission  recom- 
mended that  failure  to  obey  such  a  decree  should 
be  treated  as  a  misdemeanor,  punishable  by  fine  or 
imprisonment.  But,  instead  of  this,  the  law  merely 
provides  publicity — at  the  expense  of  the  State — as 
a  punishment.  Those  employers  who,  fourteen  days 
after  the  issuance  of  a  decree,  refuse  or  fail  to  abide 
by  it  are  to  have  their  names  published  in  four  papers 
in  every  county  in  the  State,  with  a  statement  of 
the  minimum  wage  paid  by  each  of  these  employers. 
But  any  employer  can  appeal  to  Court  and  have 
the  decree  set  aside  if  he  can  show  that  if  enforced 
it  would  endanger  the  prosperity  of  the  business  to 
which  it  was  made  applicable.  Newspapers  are  liable 
to  a  fine  of  $100  for  refusal  to  publish  at  regular 
advertising  rates  the  names  of  delinquent  employers; 
and  newspapers  are  protected  from  claims  for  dam- 
ages for  publishing  these  names. 

There  is  some  criticism  on  the  part  of  advocates 
of  the  minimum  wage  as  to  this  feature  of  the  law, 
it  being  claimed  that  it  will  be  very  expensive  to 
the  taxpayers,  as  well  as  ineffective. 


66  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

As  remarked  by  Prof.  Holcombe,  the  Massachu- 
setts law  is  frankly  an  experiment.  Other  States 
will  watch  its  workings  with  intense  interest,  for, 
apart  from  those  who  might  be  directly  concerned, 
there  is  no  proposed  plan  for  the  amelioration  of  the 
lot  of  work-people  which  is  attracting  so  much  atten- 
tion just  now  as  this,  particularly  among  political 
economists  and  social  reformers. 

Views  of  Two  Governors. 

Two  of  the  newly  elected  Governors,  both  of  the 
"progressive"  type  of  Democrats,  have  recently  made 
recommendations  on  the  subject. 

One  is  Governor  Cox,  of  Ohio.  He  desires  more 
definite  information,  to  be  obtained  by  a  State  Bureau 
of  Research,  which  he  asks  to  be  established,  before 
committing  himself  to  the  proposition  of  a  general 
minimum  wage  law  to  apply  to  all  industries.  Until 
this  information  is  obtained  he  is  convinced  that  no 
law  should  be  passed  "except  to  provide  for  the 
obviously  unjust  conditions  affecting  the  wages  of 
women  and  children." 

The  other  Executive,  Governor  Sulzer,  of  New 
York,  is  more  sweeping  and  pronounced.  After  de- 
claring that  workers  should  receive  a  more  equitable 
share  of  that  which  they  help  to  produce,  he  says: 
"No  compensation  is  fair  which  does  not  secure  to 
each  worker  at  least  enough  to  permit  him  or  her 
decent  standards  of  life.  The  workers  themselves 
have  not  been  able  to  secure  such  compensation  for 
themselves."    And  this  is  particularly  true  of  women 


THE  MASSACHUSETTS  LAW  67 

and  minors.  Therefore,  "to  secure  for  those  less 
accustomed  to  the  competitive  struggle  protection  that 
others  workers  have  won  for  themselves,  through  or- 
ganizations, we  should  carefully  consider  the  estab- 
lishment of  wage  boards  with  authority  to  fix  a  liv- 
ing wage  for  conditions  of  work  below  which  stand- 
ards no  industry  should  be  allowed  to  continue  its 
operations."  The  New  York  Sun,  in  commenting  on 
Governor  Sulzer's  message,  raises  the  question 
whether  such  a  law  as  he  proposes  would  not  be  an 
invasion  of  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  it  also  asks  the 
Governor  whether  he  believes  it  is  within  the  Con- 
stitutional power  of  the  Legislature  to  prescribe 
maximum  prices  at  which  commodities  shall  be  sold. 
The  Sun  intimates  that  the  Governor  "is  on  the  edge 
of  a  morass  and  he  had  better  look  carefully  ahead 
of  him." 

Criticism  by  Miss  Kelley. 

In  the  Journal  of  Political  Economy  (University 
of  Chicago)  for  December,  1912,  is  an  article  by  Miss 
Florence  Kelley,  secretary  of  the  National  Consum- 
ers' League  (New  York),  which  is  one  of  the  social- 
reform  philanthropic  organizations  devoted  to  the 
propaganda  for  a  general  legal  minimum  wage.  "As 
usual,"  Miss  Kelley  says,  "in  matters  of  industrial 
legislation  Massachusetts  marches  conservatively  at 
the  head  of  the  line  of  experimenting  States."  But 
she  is  critical  as  to  the  Massachusetts  law.  She  claims 
that  in  regard  to  enforcing  the  "determinations"  of 
the  Wage  Boards  it  is  a  "wide  deviation  in  the  direc- 


68  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

tion  of  futility"  as  compared  with  the  English  and 
Australian  precedents.  It  is  condemned  as  "a  much- 
mangled  form  of  the  bill"  proposed  by  the  investi- 
gating Commission  of  1911, — that  in  order  "to  save 
the  measure  to  pass  at  all"  the  provisions  making 
publicity  the  punishment  for  violation  were  inserted. 

Miss  Kelley  is  an  accepted  authority  on  labor 
legislation,  and  her  statements  and  opinions  are  en- 
titled to  great  respect.  She  finds  fault  with  the 
Massachusetts  law  because  it  is  confined  to  women, 
her  argument  being  that  "studies  of  the  pay  of 
women  with  the  view  of  ascertaining  what  consti- 
tutes a  living  wage  for  them  will  entail  turning  the 
light  upon  men's  wage  rates  in  the  same  industries. 
.  .  .  Indeed,  the  wages  of  women,  especially  of 
married  women,  depend  primarily  upon  the  wages 
of  men.  It  is  the  American  tradition  that  men  sup- 
port their  families,  the  wives  throughout  life  and 
the  children  at  least  until  the  fourteenth  birthday. 
In  recent  years  this  tradition  has,  however,  been 
rapidly  giving  way  under  the  pressure  of  immigra- 
tion." Married  women  immigrants  from  the  na- 
tions of  Southeastern  Europe  respond  to  the  demand 
for  cheap  labor  in  the  cigar  trades,  the  textiles,  the 
laundries,  the  department  stores,  and  an  ever-widen- 
ing range  of  other  occupations. 

"The  Massachusetts  law  does  not  tend  to  check 
this  retrograde  movement.  It  does  not  face  the  ques- 
tion: Why  is  the  man  no  longer  the  breadwinner? 
It  does  not  contribute  toward  conserving  the  family 


THE   MASSACHUSETTS  LAW  69 

and  the  home  with  the  man  as  its  economic  support. 
This  is  important  because,  as  the  Massachusetts  law 
is  the  first  one  in  this  country,  other  States  may 
incline  to  accept  it  as  their  model  in  place  of  the 
more  comprehensive  Australian  and  English  laws." 

Miss  Kelley  has  nothing  but  praise  for  the  Con- 
stitutional amendment  recently  adopted  in  Ohio  with 
regard  to  the  minimum  wage. 

1 'This  amendment  applies  to  men  as  well  as  to 
women.  It  expressly  connects  the  establishment  of 
a  minimum  wage  with  the  concepts  of  health  and 
working  hours.  This  is  significant,  because  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States  has  held  that 
freedom  of  contract  of  adults,  both  men  and  women, 
may  be  abridged  in  the  matter  of  working  hours, 
if  it  be  shown  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  Court  that 
the  Legislature  has  acted  for  the  benefit  of  the  health 
of  the  employees.  .  .  .  The  Legislature  is,  more- 
over, free  to  proceed  as  it  may  deem  best,  no  restric- 
tion being  placed  upon  the  method  by  which  it  is  to 
arrive  at  the  minimum  wage.  The  Legislature,  thus 
given  plenary  power  unprecedented  in  this  country, 
confronts  the  task  of  creating  machinery  for  ascertain- 
ing existing  wages  and  determining,  for  future  use, 
minimum  rates  which  the  Courts  can  not  fail  to 
recognize  and  uphold  as  reasonable.  The  large  popu- 
lar vote  in  favor  of  the  amendment  gives  promise 
of  prompt  action  during  the  legislative  session  of 
1913.  Under  these  circumstances,  it  would  appear 
that  more  immediate  practical  results,  in  the  wider 


70  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

field  of  men's  and  women's  occupations,  may  be 
looked  for  in  Ohio  than  are  yet  in  process  of  achieve- 
ment in  Massachusetts." 

It  is  evident  from  the  above  that  Miss  Kelley  will 
not  altogether  approve  of  the  conservatism  of  Gov- 
ernor Cox  in  his  message  to  the  Legislature  when 
he  recommends  that  no  law  be  passed  until  there  is 
"a  common  understanding  of  this  subject  as  de- 
veloped by  a  survey  of  the  wage  question,  .  .  . 
except  to  provide  for  obviously  unjust  conditions 
affecting  the  wages  of  women  and  children." 


CHAPTER  VI 

A  Serious  and   Complicated    Problem 

A  "Living"  Wage. 

The  preceding  chapters  justify  the  statement  that 
to  make  a  legal  minimum  wage  practicable  and  ef- 
fective there  is  a  great  problem  to  be  solved.  Such 
a  friend  of  the  proposition  as  Professor  Holcombe,  of 
Harvard  University,  admits  {Quarterly  Journal  of 
Economics,  Volume  24,  1910)  that  "there  are  greater 
difficulties,  legal,  administrative,  and  economic,  to  be 
overcome  in  America  than  in  Great  Britain."  The 
same  authority  also  holds  that  the  minimum  wage 
must  go  hand-in-hand  with  State  insurance  against 
accident,  sickness,  old  age,  and  unemployment,  and 
that  the  State  must  also  set  up  minimum  standards 
of  efficiency — that  with  the  minimum  wage  must  go 
industrial  training  and  vocational  guidance. 

The  argument  for  a  legal  minimum  wage  is  not 
merely  the  humanitarian  consideration  that  the  State 
should  step  in  and  protect  defenseless  men,  women, 
and  minors  from  being  compelled — from  their  neces- 
sities— to  Avork  for  wages  insufficient  to  properly 
maintain  life,  but  there  is  also  the  economic  one 
that  for  the  Nation's  welfare  the  American  standard 
of  living  must  be  maintained. 

There  arises  an  initial  difficulty:  What  is  the 
American  standard  of  living  ? — and  what  is  the  miruV 

71 


72  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

mum  wage  which  is  sufficient  to  maintain  that 
standard  ? 

As  far  back  as  1776  Adam  Smith,  in  his  Wealth 
of  Nations,  held:  "A  man  must  always  live  by  his 
work,  and  his  wage  must  at  least  be  sufficient  to 
maintain  him.  They  must  even  upon  most  occasions 
be  somewhat  more;  otherwise  it  would  be  impossible 
to  bring  up  a  family,  and  the  race  of  such  work- 
men could  not  last  beyond  the  first  generation." 
Coming  from  such  a  strong  advocate  of  what  is 
known  as  the  "Manchester  School"  of  Individual- 
ism, this  declaration  is  significant,  but  it  shows  that 
at  the  time  Adam  Smith  wrote  it  every  industry 
"stood  upon  its  own  bottom" — that  is,  "parasitic" 
industries,  as  now  flourishing,  were  unknown,  as  for 
several  generations  men  and  women  have  been  work- 
ing at  "sweated"  trades  which  have  not  afforded 
them  means  of  adequate  subsistence. 

Probably  the  first  definition  of  a  "living  wage" 
by  a  trade  union  is  found  in  the  declaration  of  the 
United  Silk  Throwers  of  England,  in  1872,  when 
they  declared  that  the  true  reward  of  their  labor 
could  be  summed  up  in  the  words,  "shelter,  food,  and 
raiment  both  for  ourselves,  our  wives,  and  our  chil- 
dren." In  1874,  Lloyd  Jones,  of  England — pro- 
nounced by  the  Webbs  to  be  "the  ablest  working- 
class  thinker  of  the  time" — made  this  declaration 
in  a  labor  paper  called  the  Beehive:  "The  first 
thing  that  those  who  manage  trade  societies  should 
settle  is  a  minimum,  which  they  should  regard  as 
a  point  below  which  they  should  never  go:     .     .     . 


A   COMPLICATED  PROBLEM  73 

such  a  one  as  will  secure  sufficiency  of  food  and  some 
degree  of  personal  home  comfort  to  the  workers; 
not  a  miserable  allowance  to  starve  on,  but  living 
wages. ' ' 

Economists  recognize  a  difference  between  a 
"minimum"  wage  and  a  "living"  wage,  but  gen- 
erally the  terms  are  used  synonymously ;  and  for 
practical  purposes,  in  America,  they  may  be  con- 
sidered the  same  thing. 

Samuel  Gompers,  the  president  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  in  a  debate  with  Edward  Atkin- 
son, in  1898,  gave  this  definition:  "A  minimum 
wage — a  living  wage — which,  when  expended  in  the 
most  economical  manner,  shall  be  sufficient  to  main- 
tain an  average-sized  family  in  a  manner  consistent 
with  whatever  the  contemporary  local  civilization 
recognizes  as  indispensable  to  physical  and  mental 
health,  or  as  required  by  the  rational  self-respect 
of  human  beings."  It  must  be  pointed  out  that 
Mr.  Gompers,  in  the  above,  is  not  referring  to  a 
legal  minimum  wage,  to  which  he  is  opposed. 

A  large  part  of  that  masterly  work  of  Sidney 
and  Beatrice  Webb,  Industrial  Democracy,  is  devoted 
to  the  minimum  wage.  They,  as  do  most  thorough 
thinkers  on  the  subject,  draw  a  distinction  between 
a  "minimum"  wage  and  a  "living"  wage.  The 
former,  they  say,  can  "be  determined  by  a  practical 
inquiry  as  to  the  cost  of  the  food,  clothing,  and 
shelter  physiologically  necessary,  according  to  na- 
tional habit  and  custom,  to  prevent  bodily  deteriora- 
tion.    Such  a   minimum   would,   therefore,   be  low, 


74  THE  MINIMUM  WAGE 

and  though  its  establishment  would  be  welcomed 
as  a  boon  by  the  unskilled  workers  in  the  unregu- 
lated trades,  it  would  not  at  all  correspond  with  the 
conception  of  a  'living  wage'  formed  by  the  cotton 
operatives  or  coal  miners." 

Varying  Standards  of  Living. 

Both  English  and  American  economists  agree 
that  there  is  a  great  difference  in  standards  of  liv- 
ing, and  a  great  difficulty  in  defining  them ;  and  this 
difficulty  is  particularly  so  where  work-people  of 
different  standards  of  living  come  into  competition 
with  each  other  in  industries  in  which  the  legal 
minimum  wage  is  to  be  applied.  In  the  American 
Economic  Review  (March,  1912),  Professor  Holcombe 
points  out:  "Unless  the  various  groups  of  work- 
people are  of  equal  efficiency,  the  attempt  to  estab- 
lish a  single  standard  for  all  might  result  in  securing 
the  industry  to  the  most  efficient  group  and  exclud- 
ing the  others  from  all  prospect  of  employment 
therein;"  and  he  adds,  "The  truth  is  that  there  is 
no  single  American  standard  of  living  to-day." 

In  the  "Wisconsin  bill — which  was  not  passed,  but 
is  to  be  pressed  for  passage — a  living  wage  is  defined 
as  "such  compensation  for  labor  performed  under 
reasonable  conditions  as  shall  enable  employees  to 
secure  for  themselves  and  those  who  are  or  may  be 
reasonably  dependent  upon  them  the  necessary  com- 
forts of  life."  In  the  proposed  Minnesota  law — 
for  women  and  minors  only — the  minimum  wage  is 
fixed   as   one   "which   will    enable    the   workers   af- 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  75 

fected  to  procure  a  reasonable  minimum  of  food, 
clothing,  and  shelter,  to  maintain  themselves  in  nor- 
mal health  and  working  efficiency,  and  to  obtain 
those  general  conditions  of  living  which  are  prac- 
tically necessary  for  right  moral  life." 

Having  settled — if  possible — the  question  of  a 
"standard  of  living"  and  a  rule  for  ascertaining  the 
minimum  wage  necessary  to  maintain  a  man  or  woman 
in  physical  health  and  efficiency,  the  next  question 
is,  "What  shall  be  the  living  or  minimum  wage? 

Benjamin  Seebohm  Rowntree,  the  English  radical 
reformer,  in  a  recent  article  in  the  Contemporary 
Review,  demonstrates  that  twenty-three  shillings  and 
eight  pence  a  week  is  the  absolute  minimum  in  Eng- 
land, on  which  a  family  of  five  (two  adults  and 
three  children),  paying  five  shillings  a  week  for  rent, 
can  be  maintained  in  a  state  of  physical  efficiency; 
and  yet,  he  declares,  this  is  an  unattainable  ideal 
to  the  vast  majority  of  those  unskilled  workers  who 
have  three  children  dependent  upon  them.  Mr. 
Rowntree  estimates  that  in  England  there  are  nearly 
1,000,000  men  working  for  less  than  twenty  shillings 
a  week,  and  over  1,500,000  working  for  from  twenty 
shillings  to  twenty-five  shillings. 

American  "Wages. 

Father  Ryan,  the  famous  Catholic  advocate  of 
a  legal  minimum  wage,  says  in  his  book  that  in  a 
large  American  city  $600  a  year  is  not  a  living  wage, 
and  he  estimates  that  in  all  the  industrial  occupa- 
tions in  the  country   there   are   probably   4,000,000 


76  THE    MINIMUM   "WAGE 

men  who  have  a  less  income  than  that.  John  Mitchell, 
the  labor  leader,  puts  the  minimum  at  $600  in  cities 
of  less  than  100,000  population.  Prof.  Albion  W. 
Small  says  $1,000.  The  New  York  Commission,  which 
collected  and  classified  "budgets"  of  working-people's 
income  and  expenses,  set  the  minimum  at  the  point 
where  the  average  family  ceased  to  run  into  debt — 
and  that  amount  is  put  at  $825  for  New  York.  An- 
other authority  puts  it  at  $850.  A  committee  of  the 
New  York  State  Conference  of  Charities  and  Cor- 
rections and  of  the  Russell  Sage  Foundation  (1906) 
found  that  the  physical  wants  of  a  normal  family 
in  New  York  City  can  not  properly  be  filled  by  an 
income  of  less  than  $800.  Robert  Coit  Chapin, 
in  his  Standard  of  Living  Among  Workingmen's 
Families,  gives  $700  as  the  minimum  necessary  to 
support  a  moderate-sized  family  in  a  town  or  small 
city,  and  from  $800  to  $900  in  the  largest  cities, 
and  he  claims  that  considerably  more  than  half — 
probably  two-thirds — of  adult  male  workers  receive 
less  than  $700  annually.  Prof.  R.  C.  Chapin  esti- 
mates that  a  New  York  family,  consisting  of  a  man, 
wife,  and  three  children  under  fourteen,  can  main- 
tain a  normal  standard,  at  least  so  far  as  the  physical 
man  is  concerned,  on  an  annual  income  of  $900. 

In  his  study  of  Federal  and  State  wage  statistics 
(Wages  in  the  United  States,  Macmillan's,  1911), 
Dr.  Scott  Nearing,  of  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, comes  to  these  remarkable  conclusions:  After 
making  reductions  for  unemployment,  etc.,  "it  ap- 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  77 

pears  that  half  of  the  adult  males  of  the  United 
States  are  earning  less  than  $500  a  year;  that  three- 
quarters  of  the  adult  males  in  the  country  are  earn- 
ing less  than  $600  annually;  that  nine-tenths  are 
receiving  less  than  $800  a  year,  while  less  than  ten 
per  cent  receive  more  than  that  figure."  A  corre- 
sponding computation  of  the  wages  of  women  shows 
that  a  fifth  earn  less  than  $200  annually,  three-fifths 
less  than  $325,  nine-tenths  less  than  $500,  and  only 
one-twentieth  more  than  $600,  while  three-quarters 
of  the  adult  males  and  nineteen-twentieths  of  the 
adult  females  earn  less  than  $600. 

Yet  the  last  British  report  on  American  wages 
and  living  (1911)  says  that  the  dietary  of  Amer- 
ican working  people  is  more  varied  and  liberal  than 
among  British  work-people,  and  that  the  proportion 
of  income  left  after  paying  rent  and  food  bills  is 
larger  in  America  than  in  Great  Britain — that  there 
is  a  higher  standard  of  living,  with  a  greater  surplus 
for  saving. 

" Sweated"  Industries  and  Women  Workers. 

Unquestionably  there  is  a  fast-developing  senti- 
ment in  both  America  and  England  in  favor  of  fix- 
ing a  minimum  wage  by  law  in  "sweated"  indus- 
tries— and  particularly  for  women  and  minors — and, 
indeed,  it  is  probably  true  that  apart  from  a  sur- 
vival of  the  old  laissez  fairs  doctrine,  there  is  very 
little  opposition  to  the  assumption  of  this  function 
by  the  State,  limited  as  stated.     The  opposition  to 


78  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

and  the  admitted  difficulties  apply  to  the  proposition 
to  establish  a  general  scale  of  minimum  wages  for 
the  entire  range  of  industrialism. 

"Sweated"  industries — that  is,  those  paying  un- 
usually low  rates  of  wages — are  said  to  be  "parasit- 
ical," for  the  reason  that  they  live  off  others,  in  the 
sense  that  the  workers  do  not  receive  enough  compen- 
sation to  provide  for  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  the 
difference  has  to  be  made  up  by  relatives  or  friends,  or 
by  private  or  public  charity.  The  contention  of  such 
economists  as  the  Webbs  is  that  "sweated"  industries 
are  receiving  a  "labor  force"  for  which  they  do  not 
pay,  and  are  enabled  to  exist  by  "sponging"  on  the 
community  at  large,  as  well  as  starving  the  work 
people  engaged  in  them,  and  they  insist  that  the 
Nation  would  be  better  off  without  any  such  in- 
dustries. 

But  little  reflection  is  needed  to  show  why  women 
and  minors  are  more  subject  to  "sweating"  than 
men  are.  Women  are  unable  to  form  effective  or- 
ganizations for  their  own  protection ;  in  an  industrial 
sense,  women  are  less  "mobile"  than  men — it  is  more 
difficult  for  them  to  go  elsewhere  if  local  conditions 
are  unsatisfactory ;  and  they  are  more  easily  coerced 
than  men.  Women  are  preferred  by  some  employers 
because  of  their  "cheapness"  and  "docility."  As  a 
rule,  women  are  not  as  efficient  as  men  in  industrial 
occupations,  not  because  of  less  inherent  capacity, 
but  because  as  a  rule  they  do  not  exert  themselves 
to  master  the  details;  there  are  physiological  reasons 
for  this,   and  then  the  majority  of  women  do  not 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  79 

look  upon  industrial  employment  as  their  life  work, 
for  the  reason  that  they  expect  to  marry  and  to 
depend  upon  their  husbands  to  support  them.  It  is 
said  that  over  seventy-six  per  cent  of  women  workers 
receive  less  wages  than  men  do  in  the  same  occupa- 
tions. It  is  the  general  opinion  of  experts  that  the 
competition  of  women  displaces  men  or  reduces  their 
wages,  this  being  particularly  true  of  the  textile 
trades.  "While  able  lawyers  differ  as  to  whether  a 
State  law  fixing  a  minimum  wage  for  men — except 
at  any  rate  under  abnormal  conditions — would  be 
Constitutional,  there  is  but  little  dissent  from  the 
view  that  the  Courts  would  sustain  a  legal  minimum 
wage  for  women  and  minors  in  "sweated"  industries. 

The  Path  Strewn  With  Difficulties. 

Leaving  out  of  consideration  the  old-fashioned 
and  now  largely  discarded  doctrine  of  laissez  faire, 
many  advocates  of  a  legal  minimum  wage  freely 
admit  that  the  path  is  strewn  with  difficulties. 
Among  international  authorities  who  admit  this  are 
the  two  people  who  stand  above  all  others  as  au- 
thorities on  the  history  and  philosophy  of  trades 
unions — Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb,  of  England,  and 
they  are  among  the  foremost  advocates  of  the  mini- 
mum wage.  In  their  profound  work,  Industrial 
Democracy,  they  say  that  "the  most  obvious  draw- 
back of  the  doctrine  of  a  living  wage  is  its  difficulty 
of  application."  They  point  out  that  "the  indis- 
pensable minimum  conditions  prescribed  for  each  oc- 
cupation can  not  practically  be  adapted  to  the  re- 


80  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

quirements  of  each  individual,  but  must  be  roughly- 
gauged  by  needs  of  the  normal  type;  but  a  more 
serious  difficulty  is  our  lack  of  precise  knowledge 
as  to  what  are  the  conditions  of  healthy  life  and 
industrial  efficiency."  While  the  amount  of  food, 
clothing,  and  house  accommodation  necessary  for  the 
maintenance  of  a  family  in  full  physical  and  mental 
health  might  be  ascertained,  "we  have  as  yet  no  data 
from  which  to  estimate  the  cost  of  extra  food,  cloth- 
ing, and  recreation  called  for  by  the  greater  waste 
of  muscle  and  nerve"  of  special  classes  of  workers. 
In  the  opinion  of  the  Webbs  those  trade  unionists 
who  by  organization  have  succeeded  in  controlling 
the  conditions  of  labor  would  oppose  the  establish- 
ment of  a  minimum  wage.  The  Webbs  lay  emphasis 
on  the  fact,  as  a  paradox,  that  while  the  trade  union 
policy  has  been  profoundly  influenced  by  the  de- 
mand for  State  regulation  of  employment  in  other 
respects,  there  has  been  but  little  acceptance  of  this 
doctrine  so  far  as  the  State  regulation  of  wages  is 
concerned. 

Of  course,  the  Webbs  are  speaking  of  English 
trade  unionists,  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
same  situation  exists  in  this  country,  especially  in 
the  skilled  trades.  Although  there  are  some  Amer- 
ican trade  unionists  who  favor  a  legal  minimum 
wage,  yet  the  great  bulk  of  its  advocates  are  out- 
side the  ranks  of  manual  workers — social  reformers 
and  university  political  economists.  The  conclusion 
of  the  Webbs  is  that  the  application  of  the  doctrine 
"is  likely  for  the  present  to  be  only  gradual  and 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  81 

tentative"  .  .  .  and  will  only  be  adopted  with 
regard  to  "those  unfortunate  classes  whose  wages 
are  manifestly  below  the  minimum  required  for  full 
physical  efficiency." 

Attitude  of  Organized  Labor. 

President  Wilson  has  criticised  the  plank  of  the 
Progressive  party  on  this  question.  He  assumes  that 
a  legal  minimum  wage  for  women  would  eventually 
lead  to  the  application  of  the  principle  to  industries 
in  general,  and  he  objects  to  that  because  he  thinks 
it  likely  that  the  minimum  wage  would  become  the 
maximum. 

Colonel  Roosevelt  replied  to  that  criticism  in  the 
Outlook,  he  holding  that  "the  objection  is  purely 
academic;  it  is  formed  in  the  school  room;  it  will 
not  have  any  weight  with  men  who  know  what  life 
actually  is." 

The  fairest  thing  which  can  be  said  is  that  the 
evidence  on  this  point  in  the  experience  of  New 
Zealand  and  Australia  is  very  conflicting.  Reliable 
authorities  can  be  quoted  in  favor  of  both  sides  of 
the  contention.  Striking  a  balance  between  them, 
it  would  seem  that  the  truth  is  that  when  the  mini- 
mum is  put  low  by  law  there  is  a  good  percentage 
of  wages  paid  above  that  minimum,  but  that  when 
a  fairly  high  wage  is  fixed  as  the  legal  minimum  the 
rule  is  for  it  to  become  the  maximum;  and  a  review 
of  the  evidence  as  a  whole  certainly  indicates  that 
the  general  and  increasing  tendency  in  Australasia  is 
for  the  minimum  to  become  the  maximum. 

6 


82  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

But,  be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  very  significant,  that 
Samuel  Gompers,  the  president  of  the  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor,  opposes  a  legal  minimum  for  the 
very  reason  given  by  President  Wilson;  and  the 
Federation  as  a  body  opposes  any  legislative  restric- 
tions on  the  fundamental  principle  that  workers  own 
their  own  " labor  power,"  and  that  they  alone,  acting 
individually  or  collectively,  have  the  sole  right  to 
set  the  price  and  bargain  for  the  same. 

Strange  as  it  may  appear  to  many  industrial  re- 
formers and  professors  of  the  new  humanitarian 
political  economy,  the  experiments  in  New  Zealand 
and  Australia  do  not  appeal  with  much  force  to 
the  American  trade  unionist  in  the  skilled  industries. 
The  reason  is  that  over  there  the  minimum  wage  is, 
for  the  most  part,  an  integral  part  of  a  system  in 
which  compulsory  arbitration  is  a  distinguishing  fea- 
ture; and  as  a  rule  American  trade  unionists,  like 
their  brethren  in  England,  are  strenuously  opposed 
to  compulsory  arbitration — they  look  upon  their  right 
to  strike  as  too  valuable  to  exchange  for  the  legal 
minimum  wage,  quite  apart  from  their  belief  that 
the  minimum  generally  becomes  the  maximum. 

There  can  be  hardly  any  disputing  of  the  propo- 
sition that,  as  a  rule,  where  American  labor  is  ef- 
fectively organized,  it  prefers  ''collective  bargain- 
ing" to  a  legal  minimum  wage. 

These  objections  on  the  part  of  organized  labor 
to  the  legal  minimum  wage  are  likely  to  have  a  de- 
terrent effect  on  legislative  bodies  in  undertaking  to 
regulate  wages  for  industrial  workers  generally,  al- 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  83 

though  the  outlook  is  that  the  objections  will  be  held 
not  to  apply  to  the  fixing  of  a  minimum  wage  for 
women  and  minors,  and,  in  exceptional  circumstances, 
even  to  men  in  "sweated"  trades. 

An  official  of  the  Ohio  State  Government,  who 
is  also  a  prominent  trade  unionist — and  was  ap- 
pointed to  his  office  largely  because  of  that  fact — 
gave  to  the  writer  three  reasons  why  he  was  opposed 
to  the  legal  minimum  wage:  First,  it  would  be  im- 
practicable; second,  it  would  drive  industries  out  of 
Ohio;  third,  the  minimum  wage  would  become  the 
maximum. 

More  Objections,  and  a  "Scotch  Verdict." 

It  is  worth  noting  that  at  the  last  meeting  of  the 
Ohio  State  Grange  (December,  1912)  that  body 
unanimously  passed  a  resolution  of  opposition  to  a 
maximum  working  day  and  a  minimum  wage. 

An  important  phase  of  the  problem  is  that  some 
of  the  most  prominent  advocates  of  a  legal  minimum 
wage  concede  that  to  secure  effective  results  there 
would  have  to  be  restrictions  placed  upon  the  present 
enormous  immigration  of  work  people — both  men  and 
women — whose  standard  of  living  is  considerably  be- 
low that  prevailing  in  the  United  States;  and  there 
are  those  who  claim  that  the  exigency — as  declared 
by  its  advocates — for  a  legal  minimum  wage  largely 
arises  from  the  tremendous  influx  of  this  kind  of 
immigration. 

It  is  certainly  impressive  that  the  representative 
of  the  United  States  Government  and  also  the  rep- 


84  THE    MINIMUM   WAGE 

resentative  of  the  British  Government  who  went  to 
investigate  the  experiments  in  New  Zealand  and  Aus- 
tralia both  gave  very  guarded  and  conservative  re- 
ports— that  neither  one  indorsed  the  system  to  the 
extent  with  which  they  are  credited  by  some  en- 
thusiasts. Practically  in  each  case,  taking  the  present 
full  extent  of  the  systems,  a  " Scotch  verdict"  was 
given. 

Thoughtful  and  impartial — and  even  sympathetic 
— students  of  the  New  Zealand  nd  Australasian  ex- 
periments find  it  difficult  to  come  to  a  definite  judg- 
ment, largely  because  there  seems  to  be  no  limit  to 
the  logical  application  of  the  principles  held  as  justi- 
fying the  regulation  of  wages  by  the  State.  The  only 
end  seems  to  be  " State  Socialism,"  which,  as  Dr. 
Clark  observed,  was  an  official  view  in  Australia; 
and  from  a  Socialist  standpoint  "State  Socialism" 
is  only  the  highway  to  full  "Collectivism,"  and  after 
that — the  deluge ! — socially,  politically,  and  econom- 
ically ! 

But  the  world  will  not  stand  still,  and  as  the 
Australian  working  bakers  have  had  their  minimum 
wages  fixed  by  law  the  public  are  now  demanding 
that  the  State  fix  the  maximum  price  which  can  be 
charged  for  a  loaf  of  bread ; — and  here  again,  as  in 
the  case  of  the  State  regulation  of  wages,  there  would 
be  a  reversion  to  very  ancient  history.  Commenting 
on  this  demand  of  the  Australian  public,  our  much- 
quoted  American  expert,  Dr.  Clark,  remarks:    "Of 


A   COMPLICATED   PROBLEM  85 

this  policy  of  Government  control  of  industry  it  can 
truly  be  said,  without  prejudice  to  the  question 
of  its  advisability  or  inadvisability,  that,  like  fame, 
it  increases  as  it  goes." 

And  possibly,  in  these  "progressive"  days,  it  may 
be  well  to  remember  the  saying  of  Machiavelli:  "Let 
no  man  who  begins  an  innovation  in  a  State  expect 
that  he  shall  stop  it  at  his  pleasure  or  regulate  it 
according  to  his  intention ! ' ' 


UTAH  THE  PIONEER. 
It  turns  out  that  Utah,  and  not  Massachusetts, 
is  the  first  of  the  States  in  which  a  Minimum  Wage 
law  has  gone  into  effect.  On  May  13,  1913,  a  law 
became  operative  establishing  a  Minimum  Wage  for 
women  and  minor  girls.  The  minimum  for  a  woman 
is  90  cents  a  day,  and  75  cents  for  a  minor  girl,  each 
with  a  maximum  of  54  working  hours  a  week. 


Syndicalism 


PART  I 

Its  Origin  and  Philosophy 

A  New  and  Startling  Movement. 

The  strike  of  the  Akron  rubber  workers  intro- 
duced Ohio  to  " Syndicalism." 

A  queer  name;  and  it  is  so  new  that  a  definition 
of  it  can  be  looked  for  in  vain  in  the  largest  dic- 
tionary or  most  comprehensive  encyclopedia — not 
even  in  the  latest  Webster  or  the  last  edition  of  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica.  But  within  the  past  year 
there  have  been  more  references  to  Syndicalism  in 
magazines  and  reviews  than  to  any  other  one  subject. 
Thoughtful  men  are  eager  to  obtain  full  information 
about  a  movement  which  such  a  nonsensational  jour- 
nal as  the  Engineering  Magazine  (New  York  and 
London),  of  March,  this  year,  declares  ''threatens  to 
bring  the  world  face  to  face  with  the  greatest  crisis 
of  modern  civilization — perhaps  of  any  civilization." 

The  most  succinct  definition  of  Syndicalism  which 
can  be  given  is  that  it  is  revolutionary  industrial 
unionism.  It  is  Socialist,  but  it  repudiates  the  pre- 
vailing form  of  modern  political  Socialism;  it  is  an 

87 


88  SYNDICALISM 


exclusively  labor  organization,  but  it  is  opposed  to 
the  orthodox  Trade  Unions,  and  particularly  to  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor.  It  is  a  conglomera- 
tion of  revolutionary  Trade  Unionism,  Socialism,  An- 
archism, and  Nihilism — with  special  features  of  its 
own. 

Syndicalism  is  foreign  in  origin  and  aims  to  be 
ultimately  international  in  scope.  It  was  hatched 
in  France  a  dozen  years  ago,  then  taken  to  Italy, 
where  it  nourished  and  grew  among  the  Anarchists 
of  that  country,  without,  however,  attracting  any 
particular  attention;  but  it  made  the  world  "sit  up 
and  take  notice"  when  it  crossed  the  Channel  to 
England,  and  its  leaders  assumed  managerial  direc- 
tion of  the  unprecedented  strikes  in  that  country 
within  the  last  three  years.  It  found  a  lodgment  in 
the  United  States  about  eight  years  ago  (naturally 
in  Chicago),  but  it  did  not  make  itself  known  out- 
side the  inner  circles  of  revolutionary  Socialists  until 
the  textile  strikes  at  Lawrence,  Mass.,  last  year.  And 
early  this  year  the  Syndicalists  were  active  in  foment- 
ing the  strike  fever  in  Akron  and  in  several  other 
cities  in  the  northern  part  of  Ohio;  and  in  saying 
this  the  writer  ventures  no  opinion  as  to  the  wisdom 
or  justice  of  the  strikes  themselves. 

The  American  Syndicalists  are  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World,  better  known  by  the  initials 
"I.  W.  W." 

It  is  proper  to  say  at  the  outset  that  probably 
but  few  of  the  strikers  at  Akron  understood  any- 
thing of  the  principles  of  the  organization  with  which 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  89 

the  imported  strike  agitators  were  connected ;  and 
it  is  also  probable  that  a  great  many  members  of 
the  "I.  W.  W."  do  not  appreciate  its  revolutionary 
character. 

Origin  op  Syndicalism. 

The  word  "Syndicalism"  is  a  new  one  in  the 
English  language,  and  there  is  great  public  curiosity 
to  know  its  exact  origin  and  meaning.  It  is  the 
Anglicized  form  of  the  French  word  "  Syndicalisme, " 
which  itself  is  new  even  in  the  French  language; 
it  is  derived  from  the  word  "syndical,"  which  is 
the  adjectival  form  of  "syndicat" — meaning  union; 
" syndicats  ouvriers"  is  French  for  trade  unions. 

Like  the  name  itself,  Syndicalism  is  French  in 
origin;  and,  by  the  way,  it  is  France,  along  with 
England,  which  is  the  country  of  origin  of  nearly 
all  the  varieties  of  Socialism, — Romantic,  Utopian, 
Scientific,  Revolutionary,  and  Opportunist — and  not 
Germany,  as  popularly  supposed.  It  has  been  re- 
marked that  in  all  her  theories  of  political  and  social 
economy  France  is  very  logical,  but  extremely  im- 
practical. In  this  connection  it  is  worth  noting  that 
Syndicalism  has  made  but  little  impression  in  Ger- 
many, although  Scientific  Socialism  has  attained  far 
greater  headway  in  that  country  than  in  any  other. 
Professor  Sombart,  of  Berlin,  who  has  made  a  special 
study  of  Socialism  in  all  its  varieties,  remarks  that 
Frenchmen  and  Italians  are  the  only  people  who 
could  possibly  act  up  to  such  a  system  as  Syndical- 
ism,  they   being   men   "who   do   things  impulsively 


90  SYNDICALISM 


and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  men  who  are  seized 
upon  by  a  sudden  passionate  enthusiasm." 

The  origin  of  Syndicalism  is  traced  to  the  de- 
cline of  the  revolutionary  form  of  Marxian  Social- 
ism and  the  substitution  for  it  of  the  prevailing 
political,  Opportunist,  practical,  State  Socialism, 
called  in  Germany  the  Revisionist  form  of  Socialism, 
and  in  England  Fabianism;  and  in  a  secondary 
degree  it  originated  from  dissatisfaction  with  the 
methods  of  the  old-style  Trade  Unions. 

Objects  of  Syndicalism. 

The  following  are  the  tenets  and  objects  of  Syn- 
dicalism, either  as  formally  declared  in  official  utter- 
ances or  avowed  by  acknowledged  leaders  of  the 
movement,  it  being  observed  that  in  some  countries 
more  stress  is  laid  on  some  of  the  objects  than  is 
the  case  in  others: 

1.  Organization  of  the  wage  earners  into  "in- 
dustrial groups"  instead  of  "craft  unions,"  as  is  the 
rule  now. 

2.  Fostering  a  spirit  of  not  only  "class  con- 
sciousness" (as  is  the  aim  of  the  Socialists),  but  of 
bitter,  irreconcilable  class  hatred  on  the  part  of  all 
wage  earners  against  all  members  of  the  community 
who  do  not  perform  manual  work  and  who  are  "cap- 
italists," or  who  receive  their  means  of  livelihood 
through  profit  on  industry  or  income  from  invest- 
ments. 

3.  Rejection  of  all  forms  of  political  organiza- 
tion and  of  parliamentary  action,  and  the  denial  of 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  91 

the  legitimacy  of  all  forms  of  government,   consti- 
tutional and  representative,  as  well  as  autocratic. 

4.  Indifference  to  all  ameliorative  and  reforma- 
tive labor,  social,  and  political  measures. 

5.  Especial  opposition  to  the  police  and  military. 

6.  The  habitual  use  of  the  strike,  particularly 
the  "general  strike,"  not  so  much  to  remedy  specific 
grievances  or  to  establish  improvements  in  conditions 
of  labor, — and  then  only  for  "training"  purposes — 
as  to  cripple  and  ruin  employers,  and  to  paralyze 
the  industries  of  the  country. 

7.  The  use  of  "sabotage" — that  is,  damage  to 
and  the  destruction  of  machinery  and  the  means  of 
production  and  distribution,  including  such  damage 
to  plants  as  will  prevent  the  operation  of  what  are 
classed  as  ' '  public  utilities ; ' '  and  any  means  to  inter- 
fere with  the  process  of  production  and  transporta- 
tion. 

8.  The  possession  of  the  means  of  production  and 
distribution  by  the  wage-earners  in  each  industrial 
group,  either  by  the  collapse  of  capitalism  through 
the  general  strike  or  by  forcible  seizure,  if  necessary, 
— in  either  case  no  compensation  to  be  paid. 

9.  The  establishment  of  an  "Industrial  Common- 
wealth," to  be  ruled  by  executive  committees  of  each 
labor  group,  which  shall  take  the  place  of  all  civil 
government  as  now  constituted,  including  parlia- 
ments, congresses,  legislatures,  and  councils,  and  all 
executive  and  administrative  officers,  and  all  courts, 
no  matter  whether  the  form  of  government  be  re- 
publican, monarchical,  or  autocratic. 


92  SYNDICALISM 


Syndicalism  Defined. 

Syndicalism  is  such  a  new  phase  of  "Industrial 
Democracy,"  and  it  already  has  such  a  variety  of 
interpretations,  that  a  precise  and  brief  and  at  the 
same  time  comprehensive  definition  is  rather  difficult 
to  give. 

The  London  Times  was  the  first  public  journal 
in  the  English  language  to  draw  attention  to  Syn- 
dicalism; this  was  less  than  three  years  ago,  the  cult 
having  just  crossed  over  from  the  countries  of  its 
origin,  France  and  Italy.  The  Times  gave  this  defi- 
nition: "The  aim  of  Syndicalism  is  to  hand  over 
the  means  of  production  and  distribution  to  the  Trade 
Unions  whose  members  now  operate  them,  so  that 
each  Union  will  control  its  own  means  of  livelihood 
in  the  common  interest,  and  the  workmen  thus  secure 
the  whole  product  for  themselves." 

The  first  book  in  the  English  language  to  give 
an  authoritative  exposition  of  Syndicalism  was  the 
Epstein  translation  of  Socialism  and  the  Social 
Movement,  by  the  well-known  German  writer,  Prof. 
Werner  Sombart,  the  sixth  edition  of  which  was  pub- 
lished jointly  in  London  and  New  York  in  1909. 
(Professor  Sombart,  by  the  way,  has  been  in  America 
to  make  studies  in  sociology,  and  he  is  on  record  as 
saying  that  while  Socialism  is  as  yet  very  backward 
over  here,  yet  the  conditions  are  such  that  America 
is  the  most  fruitful  soil  of  any  country  for  its  de- 
velopment.) In  his  book  above  named  Professor  Som- 
bart thus  defines  Syndicalism: 

"Syndicalists   advocate   the   formation   of   Trade 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  93 

Unions  for  whole  industries  rather  than  for  indi- 
vidual callings  in  any  one  particular  industry ;  rather 
a  large  Ironworkers'  Union  than  union  of  boiler 
makers  and  steelworkers  and  engineers.  Their  policy 
is  to  attempt  to  bring  these  large  unions  into  federa- 
tions in  order  to  combat  any  narrowing  tendencies. 
For  that  reason  they  would  do  away  with  contri- 
butions and  with  strike  funds  or  insurance  funds, 
and  they  will  hear  nothing  of  making  terms  with 
their  masters  [employers].  In  the  same  way  they 
object  to  any  policy  which  makes  for  social  peace — 
to  compromise  in  parliaments,  to  social  reform,  to 
humanitarian  institutions  which  are  due  to  the  'social 
spirit,'  and  which  serve  to  keep  that  spirit  alive. 
Indeed,  they  will  have  none  of  the  'nonsensical  talk 
about  humanitarianism.'  It  is  war  to  the  knife  they 
preach.  The  proletarian  policy  of  violence  is  there- 
fore in  the  interests  of  human  progress.  It  is  vital 
to  help  forward  everything  that  tends  to  strengthen 
the  'will  of  revolution,'  to  lay  stress  on  all  that 
accentuates  the  class  differences  between  the  prole- 
tariat and  the  bourgeoisie,  and  to  stir  up  the  hatred 
of  the  proletariat  against  the  existing  condition  of 
things.  The  most  effective  means  for  doing  all  this 
to-day  are  strikes." 

Professor  Sombart  goes  on  to  explain  that  from 
the  Syndicalist  standpoint  the  strike  "must  burst 
out  spontaneously  as  a  result  of  the  provocation  of 
the  masses,  .  .  .  and,  as  to  assistance,  it  must 
look  to  the  support  of  other  groups  of  workers  who 
are   prepared   voluntarily   to   help   those   on   strike. 


94  SYNDICALISM 


Any  strike  is  thus  a  means  of  kindling  revolutionary 
passions,  but  the  general  strike,  the  greve  generate, 
serves  such  a  purpose  in  the  highest  degree."  The 
Syndicalists,  as  Sombart  asserts,  regard  the  general 
strike  as  "the  symbol  of  the  social  revolution;  for 
them  it  is  equivalent  to  Socialism." 

The  most  prominent  Syndicalist  in  England  is 
Tom  Mann,  who  has  made  himself  conspicuous  in 
the  establishment  of  State  Socialism  in  Australia. 
During  the  great  labor  troubles  in  England  in  1910- 
1911,  Tom  Mann  exhorted  privates  of  the  regular 
British  army  not  to  obey  their  officers  when  they 
were  ordered  to  shoot  at  rioters,  for  which  he  was 
confined  in  jail  for  several  months.  At  that  time 
he  was  editor  of  the  Syndicalist,  which  openly  ad- 
vocated the  doctrines  of  the  new  form  of  Continental 
extreme  revolutionary  Socialism.  In  his  paper  Mann 
said : 

"The  essence  of  Syndicalism  is  the  control  by 
the  workers  themselves  of  the  conditions  of  their 
work.  To-day  the  capitalist  owns  and  controls  the 
tools  formerly  owned  by  the  worker,  with  the  re- 
sult that  the  worker  is  practically  his  slave.  Syn- 
dicalism proposes  that  this  control  of  the  technical 
processes  now  exercised  by  the  capitalist  shall  pass 
to  the  various  groups  of  organized  workers  of  the 
various  industries.  The  product  which  is  now  the 
property  of  the  capitalist  would  become,  under  Syn- 
dicalism, the  property  of  the  community." 

Mann  appealed  to  the  low-paid,  unorganized 
wage-workers   of   England   with   tremendous   effect, 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  95 

both  on  the  stump  and  in  his  paper.  He  argued 
that  all  changes  favorable  to  the  workers  could  only 
come  through  the  organization  of  trade  unions  of 
the  revolutionary  type.  "Organized  labor,"  he 
claimed,  "means  the  control  of  wealth  production 
to  the  extent  to  which  labor  is  organized.  It  is  only 
when  labor  is  partially  organized  that  recourse  to 
strikes  is  necessary;  not  even  the  general  strike  is 
necessary  when  labor  is  universally  organized.  Uni- 
versal organization  must  carry  with  it  industrial 
solidarity,  i.  e.,  universal  agreement  upon  the  object 
to  be  attained,  or  otherwise  the  capitalists  will  still 
triumph;  but  with  solidarity  on  the  industrial  field 
the  workers  become  all-powerful."  Mann's  theory 
to  bring  about  the  industrial  millennium  was  a  very 
low  maximum  of  working  hours  daily. 

Socialists  Abandon  "Fundamentals." 

It  is  an  extraordinary  fact  that  just  at  the  period 
when  Socialism  has  become  the  most  active  force  in 
the  political  and  economic  field,  its  "fundamentals" 
should  be  shaking — indeed,  should  have  been  prac- 
tically  abandoned  by  nearly  all  its  intellectual  ad- 
vocates, notwithstanding  that  they  are  still  loudly 
proclaimed  by  the  street-corner,  "soap-box  orators." 
These  "fundamentals"  are: 

1.  "Economic  determinism,"  or  "the  material- 
istic conception  of  history,"  which,  interpreted, 
means  that  man  has  had  no  "free  will"  or  volitionary 
influence  in  his  evolution  from  savagery,  but  that 
"the  prevailing  mode  of  economic  production  and 


96  SYNDICALISM 


exchange"  at  any  particular  period  exclusively  ex- 
plains his  social  and  intellectual,  and  even  his  moral 
and  religious,  status  at  that  time;  in  other  words, 
that  man  is  merely  the  creature  of  blind  matter 
and  that  every  problem  of  life  is  simply  one  of 
"bread  and  butter." 

2.  The  theory  of  "surplus  value" — the  alleged 
discovery  of  which,  along  with  that  of  No.  1,  ac- 
cording to  Engels,  made  Socialism  "Scientific"  and 
entitled  Marx  to  rank  in  political  economy  along 
with  Darwin  in  science.  In  simple  form  the  theory 
of  "surplus  value"  is  that  the  capitalist  pays  the 
wage-earner  only  enough  to  subsist  upon,  the  product 
to  pay  for  which  Marx  estimated  consumes  about 
half  the  worker's  labor  time,  and  that  the  capitalist 
then  steals  the  labor  product  of  the  other  half — the 
latter  being  the  "surplus  value,"  the  contention  of 
Marx  being  that  the  worker  is  entitled  to  all  the 
product  of  his  entire  time  of  labor. 

3.  The  "catastrophic  theory" — which  is  that  the 
condition  of  the  laboring  class  would  grow  increas- 
ingly worse,  until  it  became  absolutely  unbearable; 
that  the  wealth  of  the  country  would  become  all  con- 
centrated in  a  few  hands,  until  Capitalism  would 
ultimately  collapse  through  its  top  heaviness  and  own 
inherent  rottenness  and  the  ever-increasing  pressure 
of  the  clamorous  and  starving  proletariat;  and  that 
then,  suddenly,  in  a  catastrophic  manner — no  one 
knows  how — the  Industrial  Commonwealth  would  find 
itself  established  some  fine  morning,  Labor  would 
come   into  its  own,   and  the   industrial   millennium 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  97 

would  reign,  with  everybody  abundantly  supplied 
with  everything  he  wanted  and  very  little  work 
to  do! 

But  quietly,  gradually,  almost  imperceptibly,  a 
great  change  has  come  over  the  doctrinaire  spirit  of 
Socialism.  Three  or  four  years  ago  the  most  bril- 
liant— but  not  the  most  profound — Socialist  living, 
Bernard  Shaw,  the  great  playwright,  boasted  in  a 
preface  to  a  new  edition  of  the  famous  English 
Fabian  Essays  that  "since  1889  the  Socialist  move- 
ment has  been  completely  transformed  throughout 
Europe;  and  the  result  of  the  transformation  may 
be  fairly  described  as  Fabian  Socialism."  "What 
is  Fabian  Socialism?  It  is  nothing  but  practical 
Socialism  or  State  Socialism,  known  as  "Revision- 
ism" in  Germany,  and  sometimes  called  Opportunism 
or  Political  Socialism — with  Collectivism,  or  the  In- 
dustrial Commonwealth  still  mildly  professed  as  "the 
ultimate  aim,"  but  put  in  the  distant  future  as  a 
vague,  nebulous  dream. 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  here  the  stages  of  the 
process  by  which  this  tremendous  change  has  been 
wrought  in  the  conception  of  Socialism ;  but  that 
conception  has  been  accompanied  by  an  entire  re- 
versal of  the  attitude  of  modern  Socialism  to  prac- 
tical affairs.  In  its  form  or  organization,  methods, 
and  direct  aims,  the  prevailing  Socialism  of  these 
days  has  become  political;  it  has  nearly  abandoned 
its  revolutionary  propaganda  against  civil  govern- 
ment, and  it  has  become  almost  exclusively  an  agency 
for  the  agitation  of  social  reforms  and  the  "nation- 

7 


98  SYNDICALISM 


alization"  and  "municipalization"  of  public  utilities 
and  of  industries,  this  program  to  be  carried  through 
by  Constitutional  political  methods. 

Syndicalism  Versus  Socialism. 

Syndicalism  is  a  vehement  protest  against  this 
new  and  modified  prevailing  form  of  Socialism.  It 
is  a  harking  back  to  the  old  Marxian  theory  that 
labor  is  entitled  to  its  entire  product,  and  to  the 
Proudhon  pronouncement  that  as  society  is  at  pres- 
ent constituted  "all  property  is  theft."  Syndicalism 
denounces  modern  Socialism  as  being  false  to  the 
proletarian  movement,  as  having  bartered  its  revo- 
lutionary principles  for  the  sake  of  legislative  repre- 
sentation and  for  the  loaves  and  fishes  of  office- 
holding. 

The  writings  of  the  French  and  Italian  leaders 
of  Syndicalism  leave  no  doubt  on  this  score,  and  the 
same  is  true  as  to  the  leaders  of  Syndicalism  in 
England  and  the  United  States ;  and  the  reason  given 
here  is  admitted  to  be  correct  by  the  "old  guard" 
of  Marxian  Socialism — those  who,  however,  have  re- 
fused to  embrace  Syndicalism. 

The  most  profoundly  philosophical  Socialist  in 
the  English-speaking  world  is  E.  Belfort  Bax,  of 
London — and  some  consider  him  the  greatest  living 
Socialist,  not  even  excepting  Bebel  and  Kautsky,  of 
Germany.  Bax  is  a  revolutionary  Socialist — a  Marx- 
ian of  the  old  school  (although,  like  nearly  all  the 
"Intellectuals,"  he  has  discarded  the  "catastrophic 
theory"),  and  bitterly  anti-Fabian.     In  the  English 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY  99 

Socialist  Annual  for  1913  Bax  has  a  criticism  of 
Syndicalism,  but  he  confesses  that  the  reason  it  has 
become  so  popular  among  Socialists — notwithstanding 
that  it  is  opposed  to  logically  thought-out  Socialism — 
"is  due  mainly  to  disgust  at  the  apparent  ineffective- 
ness of  parliamentary  action  hitherto  to  produce  any 
real  changes  in  a  Socialist  direction.  The  corrup- 
tion of  political  life  and  its  wire  pulling,  the  effect 
of  the  parliamentary  atmosphere  in  'taming'  labor 
leaders  and  Socialist  agitators,  and  similar  considera- 
tions, have  engendered  in  many  persons  a  contempt 
and  antipathy  for  all  political,  as  opposed  to  revo- 
lutionary action." 

Syndicalists  the  world  over  complain  that  the 
Socialists  have  become  like  ordinary  "burgeois"  po- 
litical parties — a  party  of  what  is  called  "rational 
opportunism." 

Aside  from  the  difference  in  methods,  wherein 
is  Syndicalism  different  from  Socialism? 

The  great  difference  is  that  while  Socialists  be- 
lieve that  the  means  of  production,  distribution,  and 
exchange  should  be  owned  and  operated  by  the  com- 
munity at  large  for  the  benefit  of  the  community, 
Syndicalists  believe  that  the  industrial  trade  union 
is  "the  cell  of  the  future  social  and  economic  or- 
ganization." 

A  second  fundamental  difference  is  that  while 
nearly  all  Socialists  believe  that  their  Industrial 
Commonwealth  of  the  future  must  be  administered 
by  some  form1  of  State  government  elected  by  the 
people  at  large,  the  Syndicalists,  like  the  Anarchists, 


100  SYNDICALISM 


believe  in  the  abolition  of  all  forms  of  government 
as  noAV  in  operation;  but  they  also  contemplate  the 
substitution  of  the  former  State  by  the  regulation 
and  management  of  industries  by  executives  appointed 
by  the  different  industrial  groups — and  they  claim 
that  this  is  all  the  government  which  would  be  neces- 
sary. 

In  his  criticism  of  Syndicalism,  in  the  English 
Socialist  Annual  for  this  year,  Bax,  the  revolutionary 
Marxian  Socialist,  claims  that  Syndicalism  "is  by 
no  means  a  new  phenomenon  in  the  evolution  of 
Socialist  thought  .  .  .  that  Syndicalism,  so  far 
from  being  a  new  doctrine,  is  but  a  thinly-disguised 
Anarchism  seasoned  with  reminiscences  of  Proudhon 
and  the  constructive  theories  of  Louis  Blanc  and  of 
Lassalle."  Bax  shows  clearly  how  Syndicalism  dif- 
fers from  Marxian  Socialism,  as  follows: 

"One  thing  is  clear,  the  communism  assumed  by 
the  Syndicalist  theory  is  of  the  kind  which  in  reality 
is  no  communism  at  all,  since  it  only  transfers  pri- 
vate property  (or,  as  it  is  termed  in  legal  phrase, 
'property  in  severalty'),  in  the  means  of  production, 
from  the  individual  capitalist  or  joint-stock  company 
to  the  trade  union,  as  against  the  whole  people.  If 
each  trade  union  in  its  corporate  capacity  is  to  have 
complete  possession  and  unconditional  control  of  the 
means  of  production  in  its  own  particular  trade,  it 
is  perfectly  clear  that  we  have  parted  company  with 
the  fundamental  economic  principle  of  modern  So- 
cialism or  Social  Democracy — viz.,  the  communiza- 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY         101 

tion  of  the  means  of  production  and  exchange. 
Without  the  complete  possession  and  final  control 
by  the  whole  of  society  of  its  own  productive  in- 
struments and  forces,  Socialism,  as  a  system  of 
society,  is  impossible." 

Syndicalism  and  Trade  Unionism. 

The  idea  of  "industrial"  trade  unions  as  opposed 
to  "craft"  unions  is  not  a  new  one.  In  the  United 
States  it  goes  back  to  the  days  of  the  Knights  of 
Labor,  which  organization  embodied  the  principles 
of  one  great  union.  In  time,  however,  the  idea  of 
"craft"  unions  prevailed  over  that  of  one  general 
labor  union,  and  the  present  powerful  American  Fed- 
eration of  Labor  was  the  result. 

There  is  another  basic  difference  between  the  prin- 
ciples underlying  the  industrial  union  of  the  Syndi- 
calist and  the  craft  trade  union  as  generally  under- 
stood— the  different  organizations  belonging  to  the 
American  Federation  of  Labor,  for  instance.  The 
latter  organizations  recognize  the  existence  and  the 
legitimacy  of  capitalists  and  of  the  wage  system — 
so  long  as  the  wage  is  high  enough ;  they  also  favor 
"trade  agreements"  between  employers  and  the  em- 
ployed, and  a  persistent,  though  Constitutional,  agi- 
tation for  the  amelioration  of  the  conditions  of  labor 
in  all  particulars.  Syndicalists,  however,  like  the 
regular  Socialists,  aim  at  the  complete  abolition  of 
Capitalism  and  of  the  wage  system ;  the  Syndicalists 
oppose  all  "trade  agreements"  on  the  ground  that 


102  SYNDICALISM 


they  are  unfair  to  the  workers,  as  the  employers 
can  close  their  factories  whenever  they  find  it  to 
their  advantage  to  do  so,  while  the  employees  are 
bound  by  the  agreement  so  long  as  the  factory  is 
running;  and  the  Syndicalists  openly  justify  the 
breaking  of  trade  agreements  whenever  the  mood 
strikes  the  workers.  And  then,  Syndicalists  profess 
indifference  to  labor  reforms,  whether  resulting  from 
an  understanding  with  the  employers  or  through 
legislative  action,  and  if  they  accept  them  it  is  simply 
to  give  the  workers  a  more  advantageous  position 
from  which  to  fight  the  employers. 

Eugene  V.  Debs,  the  four-time  Socialist  candi- 
date for  President  of  the  United  States,  was  one 
of  the  organizers  of  American  Syndicalism,  under 
the  name  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World, 
better  known  now  by  the  initials  "I.  W.  W."  Speak- 
ing of  "craft  unionism,"  Debs  said:  "I  aver  that 
trade  unionism  no  longer  meets  the  demands  of  the 
working  class.  I  aver  that  the  trade  union  has  not 
fulfilled  its  mission  and  has  outlived  its  usefulness, 
but  that  it  is  now  positively  reactionary,  and  is 
maintained  not  in  the  interest  of  the  workers  who 
support  it,  but  in  the  interests  of  the  capitalist  class, 
who  exploit  the  workers  who  support  it.  .  .  . 
There  is  but  one  hope,  and  that  is  in  the  economic 
and  political  solidarity  of  the  working  class — one 
revolutionary  union  and  one  revolutionary  party.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  the  Industrial  Workers  of 
the    World,    an    economic    organization,    has    been 


ITS  ORIGIN  AND  PHILOSOPHY         103 

launched,  and  now  makes  its  appeal  to  you  as  wage 
slaves  aspiring  to  be  free."  And  in  a  pamphlet, 
The  Growth  of  Socialism,  Debs  exultantly  exclaims: 
"The  new  unionism  is  being  heard.  In  trumpet 
tones  it  rings  out  its  revolutionary  shibboleths  to  all 
the  workers  of  the  earth!" 


PART  II 

In  Operation 

A  New  Form  of  Anarchism. 

Syndicalists  claim  that  they  are  only  reverting 
to  original  Marxism,  but  their  opponents  in  the  So- 
cialist ranks  charge  that  the  new  movement  is  a 
revival  of  the  doctrines  advanced  by  Marx's  rival 
for  proletarian  favor,  the  Russian  Anarchist,  Ba- 
kunin,  except  that  Anarchism  embraced  the  com- 
munity generally  while  Syndicalism  is  confined  to 
the  laboring  class.  Syndicalists  have  adopted  the 
old  war  cry  of  the  International,  "The  emancipation 
of  the  workers  must  be  wrought  by  the  workers 
themselves,"  and  they  declare  that  emancipation 
must  come  from  "direct  action,"  and  not  by  the 
Marxian  "catastrophic,"  fatalistic  collapse  of  cap- 
italism, nor  by  any  political  movement  or  govern- 
mental agency. 

"Direct  Action." 

Like  the  other  peculiar  principles  of  Syndicalism, 
"direct  action"  is  French  in  origin.  The  term,  with 
its  present  sinister  meaning,  was  first  used  in  1897 
by  Fernand  Pelloutier,  General  Secretary  of  the 
French  Labor  Exchanges,  which  organization  has 
adopted  the  revolutionary  principles  of  Syndicalism. 
Pelloutier  distrusted  the  State  as  an  instrument  of 

104 


IN  OPERATION  105 

good  for  the  working  classes,  so  he  urged  them  to 
obtain  directly — hence  the  term  "direct  action" — 
what  they  could  not  hope  to  get  through  participa- 
tion in  politics. 

Specifically,  "direct  action"  means  anything 
done  by  the  working  classes  themselves,  particularly 
of  a  violent,  revolutionary  nature,  to  further  the 
ultimate  aim  of  Syndicalism,  which  is  the  ownership 
and  operation  of  the  industries  of  the  country  for 
their  exclusive  benefit  and  profit.  In  securing  this 
object,  any  kind  of  "direct  action"  short  of  actual 
murder  is  justifiable,  from  the  real  Syndicalist  stand- 
point, whatever  may  be  said  by  individual  members 
of  Syndicalist  organizations,  such  as  the  "I.  W.  W.," 
the  controlling  force  or  decision  being  the  question 
of  tactics  or  advisability  under  the  circumstances  of 
the  case. 

To  fully  appreciate  the  philosophy  and  the 
claimed  justification  of  "direct  action,"  one  must 
keep  in  mind  the  fact  that  Syndicalists  hold  the 
most  extreme  views  of  Marxian  Socialists  in  deny- 
ing the  right  of  capital  to  "exploit"  labor,  and  in 
holding  that  only  the  workers  are  entitled  to  re- 
ceive any  portion  of  the  profits  of  their  industry 
and  to  own  the  instruments  of  production;  that  they 
hold  that  all  private  property — except  that  which 
they  themselves  possess  as  reward  for  their  labor — 
is  robbery;  and  that  they  look  upon  all  government 
as  tyrannical  and  capitalistic,  and  all  participation 
in  political  affairs  as  foolishness. 

A  recent  number  of  the  New  York  Independent 


10G  SYNDICALISM 


had  an  article — really  a  boastful  confession — by  an 
avowed  Syndicalist  named  Andre  Tridon,  who  is  the 
American  correspondent  of  the  leading  French  Syn- 
dicalist paper,  La  Bataille  Syndicaliste — The  Union 
Battle.  This  article  was  submitted  to  and  approved 
by  W.  D.  Haywood,  Frank  Bohn  and  Joseph  Ettor, 
prominent  members  of  the  "I.  W.  W."  Andre 
Tridon  says:  "Direct  action  is  a  new  and  elaborate 
weapon,  the  most  formidable  which  the  working 
classes  have  ever  used;  it  is  so  formidable,  in  fact, 
that  trade  unionists  and  Socialists  are  quite  afraid 
of  using  it,  and  the  latter  have  passed  a  motion 
disqualifying  any  member  of  the  party  who  advo- 
cates direct  action."  Haywood  is  quoted  with  ap- 
proval by  Tridon  in  declaring  that  "the  best  form 
of  popular  propaganda  is  'quick  results.'  "  By  the 
way,  there  is  now  a  movement  in  the  regular  Socialist 
party  to  expel  Haywood  from  it  because  of  his  ad- 
vocacy of  violent  "direct  action." 

The  "General  Strike." 

Of  the  different  phases  of  "direct  action,"  the 
strike,  especially  the  "general  strike,"  is  most  in 
favor  with  the  Syndicalists.  According  to  their  creed, 
any  strike,  at  any  time,  for  any  reason,  is  a  desirable 
thing, — better  than  no  strike  at  all — for  it  engenders 
class  hatred  and  causes  the  employers  to  lose  money, 
and  inconveniences  the  public ;  and  these  things,  they 
imagine,  are  "all  to  the  good"  in  hastening  the  day 
of  the  industrial  millennium !  Hence,  Syndicalists 
are  always  to  the  front  in  strikes.     This  was  con- 


IN   OPERATION  107 


spicuously  so  in  England,  when  Tom  Mann  and  Ben 
Tillett,  two  of  the  leading  Syndicalists  of  that  coun- 
try, took  charge  of  the  gigantic  strikes  of  the  railroad 
men,  dock  laborers,  and  miners  over  there  within  the 
last  three  years,  although  it  is  probable  that  a  ma- 
jority of  the  strikers  had  never  heard  of  Syndical- 
ism. The  same  has  been  true  in  several  big  strikes 
in  America,  particularly  that  at  Lawrence,  Mass.,  a 
short  time  ago,  and  more  recently  that  of  the  rubber 
workers  at  Akron,  Ohio.  In  France  the  Syndicalists 
have  paid  professional  organizers  called  "delegates," 
and  it  is  altogether  fair  to  assume  that  the  American 
"I.  W.  W."  have  agents  who  "smelleth  the  battle 
afar  off,"  and  are  paid  to  hurry  there  to  make  all 
the  trouble  they  can. 

The  history  of  labor  organizations,  both  in  this 
country  and  England,  is  largely  an  unhappy  recital 
of  strikes;  but  they  have  all  been  entered  into  for 
the  purpose  of  securing  some  claimed  right  or  to 
remedy  some  real  or  fancied  wrong.  But  while  the 
Syndicalists  support  such  strikes,  they  look  upon  them 
as  only  incidental  to  a  grand  movement,  as  a  sort 
of  training  for  a  general  strike. 

The  general  strike  is  the  soul  of  Syndicalism.  It 
is  often  said  that  Socialism  is  the  religion  of  the 
proletariat;  the  general  strike  is  the  religion  of  Syn- 
dicalism. Georges  Sorel,  the  great  French  literary 
expounder  of  Syndicalism — and  called  "the  Marx" 
of  the  new  doctrines — prophesies  that  the  day  is  not 
far  distant  when  the  best  definition  of  Socialism  will 
be  the  "General  Strike." 


108  SYNDICALISxM 


Syndicalists  have  a  very  plausible  theory  which 
they  claim  justifies  the  general  strike.  It  is  that 
if  labor  universally  lays  down  its  tools  and  folds  its 
arms  the  employers,  from  sheer  disgust  and  from 
actual  bankruptcy,  will  be  compelled  to  turn  over 
their  factories  and  mills  to  the  workmen,  and  that 
if  they  do  not  do  so  the  public,  from  a  sentiment  of 
self-preservation,  will  force  them  to  yield.  The  idea 
is  not  exactly  a  new  one.  A  century  ago  Mirabeau 
declared  that  any  people  would  be  formidable  if 
they  were  immovable — that  is,  if  they  went  on  a 
general  strike.  The  old  International,  at  a  congress 
held  at  Brussels  in  1868,  gleefully  pointed  out  "that 
if  production  were  arrested  for  a  certain  time  society 
could  not  exist,  and  that  it  was  only  necessary  for 
producers  to  cease  to  produce  in  order  to  make  gov- 
ernment impossible."  A  year  later  the  organ  of  the 
International  announced  "that  the  extension  of 
strikes  from  one  trade  to  another  showed  the  exist- 
ence of  a  tendency  to  develop  into  a  'general  strike,' 
and  that,  with  the  ideas  of  the  emancipation  of  labor 
then  prevalent,  such  a  strike  could  only  end  in  a 
cataclysm  in  which  society  would  be  reborn."  The 
International  favored  an  organized  solidarity  of  labor 
upon  an  international  basis  as  a  preparation  for  a 
universal  strike  in  order  to  bring  the  entire  capital- 
istic wealth  and  industrial  system  of  the  world  under 
the  domination  of  labor.  But,  although  the  idea 
of  the  general  strike  was  indorsed  by  the  Interna- 
tional, it  was  abandoned  for  the  time  being  as  then 
impracticable.     In  1892,  however,  the  principle  was 


IN  OPERATION  109 

adopted  by  the  French  Federation  of  Trade  Unions 
on  motion  of  no  less  a  personage  than  M.  Aristide 
Briand,  who  was  then  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
revolutionary  Socialists,  and  who  afterward  became 
Minister  of  Justice  and  finally  Prime  Minister  of 
France. 

Revolution  Through  the  Strike. 

M.  Briand  is  called  "the  father  of  the  general 
strike."  In  1899  he  delivered  an  extraordinary 
speech,  which  plagued  him  afterward  when  he  as- 
sumed the  responsibilities  of  the  office  of  the  Premier- 
ship. In  that  speech  he  did  not  altogether  repudiate 
political  action,  but  he  urged  the  workers  to  "create 
the  revolution." 

If  they  entered  the  battle  with  the  ballot,  that 
was  all  right,  but  they  should  enter  it  "with  pikes, 
sabers,  pistols,  guns ;  far  from  disapproving  of  your 
action,  I  shall  feel  it  my  duty,  if  the  necessity  should 
arise,  to  take  a  place  in  your  ranks."  M.  Briand 
claimed  that  in  the  last  resort,  if  the  workers  "rose 
as  a  vast  and  united  force,"  the  army  would  no 
longer  be  a  passive  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the 
bourgeoisie,  but  "the  soldiers  would  refuse  to  fire 
upon  the  people,  and,  besides,  the  army  itself,  even 
if  discipline  were  maintained,  would  be  helpless  in 
the  presence  of  so  huge  a  danger  "  But  M.  Briand 
lived  to  "eat  his  own  words,"  for  when  he  became 
Premier  he  not  only  turned  the  army  of  France 
against  revolutionary  strikers,  but  made  them,  under 
the  law  of  the  Republic,  "join  the  colors"  to  pre- 


110  SYNDICALISM 


serve  the  peace  and  protect  life  and  property.  This 
act  was  bitterly  resented  by  the  revolutionists,  and, 
while  it  was  applauded  by  the  patriotic  citizens  of 
France,  it  gave  an  impetus  to  the  Syndicalist  propa- 
ganda, although  ever  since  then  the  advocates  of 
"direct  action"  have  manifested  a  wholesome  re- 
spect for  the  power  of  the  National  Government. 
The  birth  of  Syndicalism  is  generally  dated  from 
the  indorsement  of  the  general  strike  by  the  French 
Federation  of  Trade  Unions  in  1892,  on  motion  of 
M.  Briand. 

Andre  Tridon,  the  Franco-American  Syndicalist, 
in  his  article  in  the  New  York  Independent,  before 
quoted,  thus  describes  a  model  strike,  such  as  would 
meet  his  approval: 

"The  workers  must  be  able  to  strike  at  the  very 
time  when  the  mills  and  factories  are  rushed  with 
orders  and  are  least  able  to  stand  a  sudden  cessa- 
tion of  production;  secondly,  they  must  close  not 
only  one  part  of  a  mill  or  factory,  but  the  whole 
plant.  Therefore,  no  agreement  binding  either  the 
whole  working  force  or  one  craft  must  ever  be  entered 
into  with  the  employers.  All  crafts  must  be  ready 
to  stop  work  simultaneously  at  any  time.  The  mere 
betterment  of  living  conditions  is  not  an  aim,  but 
a  means  to  an  end;  the  end  being  the  ousting  of 
the  employers  as  such  and  the  taking  over  of  their 
industries  by  the  workers.  This  will  be  brought 
about  by  the  general  strike,  for  which,  according  to 
Griffuelhes,  former  secretary  of  the  French  General 


IN  OPERATION  ill 

Federation  of  Labor,  'the  workers  must  keep  them- 
selves in  training,  a  training  more  rigorous  every- 
day.'  By  that  daily  training  we  must  understand 
the  practice  of  sabotage.  Strikes  may  gain  certain 
advantages  for  the  workers,  but  sabotage  well  con- 
ducted is  sure  to  bring  about  the  employers'  dis- 
comfiture." 

Then  this  frank  revolutionist  gives  an  exposition 
of  the  different  varieties  of  sabotage — of  which  more 
anon.  Tridon  favors  short  but  frequent  strikes — 
as  they  "can  inflict  heavy  losses  upon  the  industry 
they  disorganize  without  impoverishing  the  workers." 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  of  last  January  had  an 
article  by  Ernest  Dimnet,  professor  of  English  and 
French  literature  in  the  College  Stanislas,  of  Paris, 
on  Syndicalism.  He  pictures  as  follows  the  Syndi- 
calists' dream  of  the  "Great  Strike:" 

"The  great  hope,  the  great  vision,  which  haunts 
and  delights  them  is  that  of  the  final  storming,  which 
they  call  the  Great  Strike.  When  all  the  world  of 
labor  has  become  Syndicalist,  when  there  are  no  fools 
left  to  fight  against  their  own  interest,  one  fine 
evening — le  grand  soir — a  universal  strike  shall  be 
decreed.  Next  day  there  will  be  no  bakers  to  make 
bread,  no  butchers  to  kill  meat,  no  colliers  to  dig 
up  coals,  no  railway  men  to  take  bourgeoisie  about. 
In  a  few  days  of  this  awful  stagnation  capitalism 
will  realize  that  gold  in  itself  is  nothing,  while  labor 
is  everything,  and  machines  will  be  either  made  over 
or  quietly  appropriated  by  the  workmen." 


112  SYNDICALISM 


' '  Sabotage.  ' ' 

"Sabotage"  is  "direct  action"  in  its  highest  ex- 
emplification, next  only  to  the  grand  climax  of  Syn- 
dicalism— the  wholesale  surrender  or  forcible  seizure 
of  factories  and  plants  and  the  other  means  of  pro- 
duction. Originally,  "sabotage"  was  solely  applied 
to  acts  of  strikers  in  injuring  or  destroying  ma- 
chinery, the  word  being  coined  from  an  incident  in 
which  a  workman  during  a  strike  threw  his  wooden 
shoe — called  in  French  a  "sabot" — into  the  machin- 
ery. But,  speaking  Syndically,  "sabotage"  has  now 
a  very  wide  meaning,  in  that  it  covers  any  act  the 
object  of  which  is  to  embarrass  or  injure  financially 
the  employer,  or  to  cause  public  inconvenience  so 
as  to  compel  the  community  to  "take  notice." 

Prof.  Louis  Levine,  of  Columbia  University,  ex- 
plains that  sabotage  "consists  in  obstructing  in  all 
possible  ways  the  regular  process  of  production  in 
order  to  obtain  any  demand.  It  may  express  itself 
in  slow  work,  in  bad  work,  and  even  in  the  destruc- 
tion of  the  machinery  ol  production.  An  application 
of  this  method  (in  France)  which  has  recently  at- 
tracted attention  is  the  so-called  greve  perlee.  This 
is  practical  on  railway  lines,  and  consists  in  a  more 
or  less  systematic  obstruction  of  the  regularity  of 
the  railroad  service.  The  Syndicalists,  however, 
strongly  condemn  any  act  of  sabotage  which  may  re- 
sult in  the  loss  of  life." 

In  his  confession  in  the  New  York  Independent, 
Andre  Tridon  quotes,  quite  as  a  matter-of-fact  inci- 


IN   OPERATION  113 

dent,  minute  instructions  given  by  French  Syndi- 
calist experts  a*s  to  how  to  stop  industries  in  which 
electricity  is  the  motive  power — how  to  put  steam 
boilers  out  of  order,  how  to  corrode  boiler  tubes  with 
acids  and  to  ruin  cylinders  and  piston  rods,  how  to 
put  dynamos  and  transformers  out  of  running,  and 
how  to  destroy  underground  cables.  Special  instruc- 
tions are  given  as  to  how  to  stop  the  mining  of  coal 
or  its  output  from  the  mine,  or  its  transportation 
on  railroads ;  and  ' '  if  the  fuel  reaches  its  destination, 
what  is  simpler  than  to  set  the  pockets  on  fire  and 
have  the  coal  burn  in  the  yards  instead  of  the  fur- 
naces? It  is  child's  play  to  put  out  of  work  the 
elevators  and  other  automatic  devices  which  carry 
coal  to  the  fireroorn."  "In  this  fight,"  boasts  the 
doughty  Tridon,  "Syndicalists  do  not  even  pretend 
to  observe  the  rules  of  civilized  warfare.  The  flag 
of  truce  does  not  protect  emissaries." 

Professor  Dimnet,  in  his  article  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  avers  that  all  of  the  bandits  who  for  sev- 
eral weeks  scoured  the  environs  of  Paris,  waylaying 
motorists,  plundering  banks,  and  massacring  police- 
men were  members  of  Syndicalist  bodies,  one  of  them 
being  a  ' '  delegate, ' ' — a  professional  strike  promoter — 
or  were  found  to  be  in  possession  of  Syndicalist  lit- 
erature. Four  of  these  bandits  were  recently  sen- 
tenced to  the  guillotine. 

"Sabotage"  now  covers  so  wide  a  scope  that  it 
embraces  not  only  physical  acts,  but  nonactivity,  so 
long  as  the  contemplated  result  is  the  ruin  of  the 


114  SYNDICALISM 


employers.  This  queer  idea  also  came  from  France, 
the  revolutionary  workmen  of  whicfi  country  have 
developed  an  actual  genius  in  this  direction. 

A  little  over  a  year  ago  the  London  Times  and 
a  leading  Welsh  paper,  the  Western  Mail,  startled 
Great  Britain  by  exposing  a  system  which  had  taken 
root  among  the  coal  miners  of  ' '  gallant  little  Wales. ' ' 
At  that  time  a  coal  strike  was  raging.  A  pamphlet 
was  extensively  circulated  among  the  strikers,  its 
title  being,  The  Miners'  Next  Step.  It  advocated 
the  formation  of  an  organization  of  all  the  workers 
in  the  mines,  acting  under  an  executive  clothed  with 
arbitrary  powers.  The  old  method  of  striking  to 
remedy  specific  minor  grievances  was  to  be  discour- 
aged, but  the  organization  was  to  adopt  "the  more 
scientific  weapon  of  the  irritation  strike."  This  "ir- 
ritation strike"  was  explained  to  be  the  policy  of 
"simply  remaining  at  work,"  but  to  dawdle  away 
the  time,  and  to  purposely  "make  the  colliery  unre- 
munerative ' '  by  the  nonproduction  of  coal ;  to  refrain, 
however,  from  any  overt  act.  In  this  way — so  ran 
the  plan — the  colliery  owners  would,  out  of  complete 
disgust,  abandon  their  property  and  turn  it  over  to 
the  miners,  who,  when  this  happened,  were  to  resume 
work  for  their  exclusive  profit!  The  pamphlet  gave 
another  method  of  procedure:  "That  a  continual 
agitation  be  carried  on  in  favor  of  increasing  the 
minimum  wage  [which  has  since  been  granted]  and 
lessening  the  hours  of  labor  until  we  have  extracted 
the  whole  of  the  employers'  profits.  That  our  object 
be  to  build  up  an  organization  that  will  ultimately 


IN  OPERATION  115 

take  over  the  mining  industry  and  carry  it  on  in  the 
interest  of  the  workers." 

Many  of  the  most  responsible  leaders  of  the  British 
labor  movement  repudiated  this  program,  but  it  took 
a  great  hold  on  the  imagination  of  the  masses  of  the 
miners. 

American  Syndicalism — The  "I.  W.  W." 

The  American  interpretation  of  Syndicalism  is 
presented  by  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World 
("I.  W.  W. "),  which  organization  was  formed  in 
Chicago  on  the  initiative  of  Eugene  V.  Debs  and 
W.  D.  Haywood.  In  1904  six  men  met  and  issued 
a  call,  and  a  second  conference  was  held  in  1905. 
Daniel  de  Leon — a  leader  in  a  small  revolutionary 
Marxian  organization  called  the  Socialist-Labor  party, 
in  opposition  to  the  regular  Socialist  party — and  a 
number  of  his  followers  were  denied  recognition  later 
on,  and  so,  in  1908,  another  organization  of  the  "I. 
W.  W."  (with  the  same  name)  was  formed,  with 
headquarters  at  Detroit.  The  original  organization 
still  has  its  headquarters  at  Chicago,  the  much-adver- 
tised J.  J.  Ettor  being  on  the  Executive  Board. 
When  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  (or 
"I.  W.  W. ")  are  mentioned,  reference  is  generally 
meant  to  this  one.  The  other  one,  which  is  small 
numerically,  is  differentiated  by  being  called  "the 
Detroit  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World."  Both  or- 
ganizations have  identically  the  same  preamble  to 
their  declaration  of  principles,  "The  working  class 
and  the  employing  class  have  nothing  in  common." 


116  SYNDICALISM 

The  "principles"  of  the  two  bodies  are  expressed 
in  slightly  different  language,  and  there  is  some 
minor  variation  in  the  details  of  organization,  but 
practically  the  methods  are  the  same  and  the  aims 
are  one.  A  prominent  declaration  of  the  Chicago 
"I.  W.  W."  is:  "Instead  of  the  conservative  motto, 
'A  fair  day's  wage  for  a  fair  day's  work,'  wre  must 
inscribe  on  our  banner  the  revolutionary  watchword, 
'Abolition  of  the  wage  system.'  "  In  the  matter  of 
trade  union  organization  there  is  a  slight  difference 
from  European  Syndicalism.  Affiliation  with  all  ex- 
isting political  and  non-political  organizations  is  re- 
pudiated, and  the  "I.  W.  W."  is  declared  to  be 
composed  exclusively  of  wTorkingmen;  but  this  dec- 
laration has  recently  been  extended  by  some  asso- 
ciated bodies  to  include  physicians,  teachers,  artists, 
and  other  professional  men,  although  the  general 
sentiment  appears  to  be  opposed  to  the  recognition 
of  any  but  wage-earning  manual  workers. 

It  is  declared  that  the  struggle  between  the  labor- 
ing class  and  the  employing  class  "must  go  on  until 
the  workers  of  the  world,  organized  as  a  class,  take 
possession  of  the  earth  and  the  machinery  of  pro- 
duction and  abolish  the  wage  system."  At  the  close 
of  1912  the  Chicago  "I.  W.  W. "  was  composed  of 
160  local  unions  and  two  National  Industrial  unions 
(in  the  textile  and  lumber  industries).  Its  total 
enrolled  membership  at  the  end  of  the  year  is  given 
as  70,000,  including  members  in  Hawaii,  Australia, 
New  Zealand,  and  South  Africa. 

It  appeal's  that  originally  the  motive  of  the  forma- 


IN  OPERATION  117 

tion  of  the  "I.  W.  W."  was  the  advancement  of 
Marxian  revolutionary  Socialism  on  the  basis  of  in- 
dustrialism, and  that  the  idea  of  European  Syndical- 
ism was  not  specifically  in  mind.  But  in  a  recent 
pamphlet  on  Syndicalism  by  Carl  C.  Ford  and  Wm, 
Z.  Ford — the  latter  being  the  secretary  of  the  Syn- 
dicalist League  of  North  America — it  is  stated  that 
since  its  organization  in  1905  the  "I.  W.  W. "  "has 
progressed  far  toward  Syndicalism  by  the  rejection 
of  political  action  and  the  adoption  of  'direct  action' 
tactics." 

Dr.  Wm.  E.  Bohn,  a  university  man  formerly 
connected  with  the  movement,  in  an  article  in  the 
Survey  says: 

"A  direct  actionist  may  or  may  not  believe  that 
violent  measures  are  justifiable  in  the  fight  against 
capitalism.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  all  the  members 
of  the  Detroit  I.  W.  W.  are  consistently  opposed  to 
violence.  .  .  .  Moreover,  very  many  of  fhe  mem- 
bers of  the  I.  W.  W.  (Chicago)  are  also  opposed 
to  violence.  Some  of  the  latter  organization,  how- 
ever, believe  that  violence  is  always  justifiable,  and 
sometimes  more  effective  than  any  other  means. 
.  .  .  Violence  is  used  against  them  (the  workers), 
and  it  is  necessary  to  fight  fire  with  fire." 

Andre  Tridon,  the  Franco-American  Syndicalist, 
explains  in  his  confession  in  the  New  York  Inde- 
pendent "that  American  Syndicalists  prefer  to  be 
spoken  of  as  'Industrialists.'  "  He  says  that  certain 
Anarchistic  groups  in  America  call  themselves  "Syn- 
dicalist Circles,"  but  that  the  "I.  W.  W."  repudiate 


118  SYNDICALISM 


all  affiliation  with  them.  Tridon  professes  to  speak 
with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  "inside  workings"  of 
the  American  Syndicalist  organizations.  He  makes 
the  audacious  boast  in  his  article  in  the  New  York 
Independent  that  Ettor  and  Giovanitti,  who  were 
tried  for  murder — accessories  before  the  deed — in  con- 
nection with  the  riots  incidental  to  the  textile  strike 
at  Lawrence,  Mass.,  were  acquitted  and  freed  because 
of  Syndicalist  threats  made  to  the  Court.  He  claims 
that  "a  warning"  resulted  in  their  trial  being  put 
forward — "a  date  was  at  once  set."  And  then  he 
says:  "When  it  became  evident  that  the  world  would 
witness  a  repetition  of  the  Hay  market  incident  (the 
Chicago  Anarchist  riots)  another  warning  reached 
the  Court,  and  Ettor  and  Giovanitti  were  freed." 
Tridon  denies  that  the  affair  at  Lawrence  has  been 
settled.  He  claims  that  the  ending  of  the  strike 
"was  a  mere  truce  during  which  the  attacking  force 
(the  strikers)  planned  to  recuperate  and  fit  them- 
selves for  a  renewed  attack  on  an  enemy  with  whom 
no  treaty  shall  be  signed,  and  who  must  finally  either 
destroy  the  workers  or  be  destroyed  by  them. ' ' 

A  concrete  example  of  the  application  of  the  doc- 
trines and  methods  of  Syndicalism  in  America  is 
given  in  the  report  of  the  Cleveland  Leader  of  March 
10th  of  the  Akron  (Ohio)  rubber  workers'  strike: 
"The  men  also  were  instructed  to  tear  up  their 
union  cards  before  the  bosses  in  order  to  get  a  job, 
and  when  they  got  back  into  the  factory  practice 
sabotage  and  do  all  possible  damage  to  the  machines. " 


IN  OPERATION  119 

And  the  strikers  were  advised  to  "fight  the  machines 
and  not  the  police." 

With  amazing  frankness  witnesses  before  the  Leg- 
islative Committee  investigating  conditions  at  Akron 
testified  that  they  believed  in  sabotage,  and  they 
undertook  to  defend  it  as  the  only  method  through 
which  labor  could  secure  its  rights. 

Future  of  Syndicalism. 

The  New  York  World  Almanac  for  1913  states 
that  there  are  600,000  avowed  Syndicalists  in  France, 
but  this  number  is  probably  excessive,  as  another 
authority  gives  300,000,  out  of  900,000  trade  union- 
ists, the  total  number  of  French  wage  earners  being 
9,000,000.  So,  anyhow,  the  Syndicalists  are  in  a 
decided  minority;  but  Syndicalists  generally  take 
the  position  that  an  alert,  well-organized  minority 
has  the  right  to  "lord  it  over"  an  inert  and  unor- 
ganized majority; — this  view,  by  the  way,  being  also 
expressed  by  many  intellectual  Marxist  Socialists, 
like  Bax.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  Socialist  and 
Syndicalist  "intellectuals"  are  opposed  to  the  initi- 
ative and  referendum  where  the  farming  population 
predominates,  but  only  approve  of  "direct  democ- 
racy" where  the  Socialists  and  trade  unionists  are 
well  organized  and  are  a  controlling  force  in  the 
cities.  Syndicalism  in  France  is  suffering  from  the 
lack  of  intellectual  leadership  and  also  from  the 
rivalry  between  it  and  Marxist  Socialism. 

Italy   is   a   hotbed   of   Syndicalism,    which   is  to 


120  SYNDICALISM 


be  expected,  as  its  Socialism  has  always  taken  on 
an  Anarchistic  form.  Organized  farm  laborers,  pro- 
fessing Syndicalism,  operate  200,000  acres  of  tillable 
land  co-operatively,  and  the  Industrial  Union  of 
Bottle  Blowers,  which  professes  Syndicalism,  has  a 
large  co-operative  establishment.  A  great  many  of 
the  employees  of  the  railroads — which  are  under 
State  control — are  avowed  Syndicalists,  and  clashes 
between  them  and  the  authorities  are  frequent. 

In  spite  of  occasional  revolutionary  outbursts, 
there  are  indications  that  the  movement  in  both 
France  and  Italy  is  on  the  wane,  partly  from  fac- 
tional differences,  but  principally  because  intelligent 
men  withdraw  from  it  when  they  fully  comprehend 
its  philosophy  and  methods.  Quite  recently  several 
of  the  literary  advocates  of  Syndicalism  in  Italy  have 
announced  their  wreariness  with  the  propaganda. 

In  1910  a  Syndicalist  conference  was  held  in 
England,  in  which  it  was  claimed  that  60,000  ad- 
herents were  represented.  This  was  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  extraordinary  "strike  fever"  which 
swept  over  Great  Britain.  But  the  revolutionary 
movement  in  that  country  seems  to  have  subsided 
greatly  during  the  last  six  months.  Syndicalism  is 
being  fought  by  every  school  of  regular  Socialism — 
the  Marxist,  as  well  as  the  Opportunist  Fabian.  Last 
year  the  British  Trade  Union  Congress  discussed 
and  condemned  Syndicalism,  and  defended  political 
action;  it  also  advocated  the  "nationalization"  of 
railroads  and  mines. 


IN  OPERATION  121 

Opposition  to  Syndicalism. 

The  Socialist  Year  Book  for  1913,  issued  by  the 
British  Independent  Labor  Party,  has  a  signed  ar- 
ticle by  the  editor,  J.  Bruce  Glasier,  deprecating  the 
idea  of  Syndicalism  being  at  the  bottom  of  the  labor 
unrest,  and  claiming  that  it  has  no  hold  on  the  work- 
ing class  of  England  or  any  other  country.  In  the 
same  article  Editor  Glasier  condemns  the  general 
strike  as  a  method  of  industrial  warfare  in  the  fol- 
lowing manner: 

"The  moment  a  general  strike  takes  place  the 
workers  begin  to  starve,  and  the  terror  of  famine 
which  the  strike  involves  falls  at  once  with  devour- 
ing jaws  on  the  strikers  themselves.  There  is  only 
one  power  that  can  subdue  famine,  and  that  is  food, 
and  in  order  to  get  food  the  strikers  must  return 
to  work.  As  a  method  of  revolution  the  general 
strike  is  likely  to  be  as  effective  as  general  suicide 
would  be  so  long  as  capitalism  remains  entrenched 
behind  the  needs  of  the  community  and  the  political 
forces  of  the  State.  .  .  .  The  social  revolution 
can  not  be  achieved  by  the  simple  device  of  laying 
down  tools." 

David  Lloyd  George  pointed  out  in  the  British 
Parliament  that  no  leaders  of  the  Labor  Party  (which 
is  Socialist,  of  the  Fabian  order)  had  committed 
themselves  to  Syndicalism ;  that,  indeed,  Syndicalism 
and  the  Socialism  of  that  party  were  mutually  de- 
structive. "We  can  console  ourselves  with  the  fact," 
said  Lloyd  George,  "that  the  best  policeman  for  the 


122  SYNDICALISM 


Syndicalists  is  the  Socialist" — meaning  the  Laborite. 
J.  Ramsay  McDonald,  the  intellectual  leader  of  the 
British  Labor-Socialist  movement,  has  spoken  of  Syn- 
dicalism in  much  the  same  terms  as  those  used  by 
Lloyd  George. 

In  the  United  States  the  outlook  is  that  "the 
revolutionary  measles" — as  the  British  Socialists  dub 
Syndicalism — has  not  yet  reached  its  full  growth, 
and  already  it  has  had  to  face  much  opposition,  both 
from  Socialists  and  trade  unionists.  At  the  last  an- 
nual convention  of  the  Socialist  party  (held  at  In- 
dianapolis) the  following  resolution  was  adopted  as 
part  of  their  Constitution: 

"Any  member  of  the  party  who  opposes  political 
action  or  advocates  crime,  sabotage,  or  other  methods 
of  violence  as  a  weapon  of  the  working  class  to  aid 
in  its  emancipation  shall  be  expelled  from  member- 
ship of  the  party.  Political  action  shall  be  construed 
to  mean  participation  in  elections  for  public  office 
and  practical  legislation  and  administrative  work 
along  the  lines  of  the  Socialist  party  platform." 

"While  outwardly,  and  to  the  uninformed,  the  So- 
cialists and  the  Syndicalists  may  appear  to  be  one, 
there  is  really  an  intense  antagonism  between  them, 
although  there  are  many  Syndicalists  in  the  Socialist 
party,  and,  indeed,  the  former  claim  that  a  majority 
of  American  Socialists  are  sympathetic  toward  Syn- 
dicalist views;  and  this  claim  has  some  foundation 
from  the  fact  that  most  of  the  Socialist  papers  in- 
cline to  Syndicalism.  What  the  final  result  will  be 
it  is  difficult  to  say,  but  it  will  probably  eventuate 


IN   OPERATION  123 

in  a  radical  split  among  American  Socialists,  such 
as  happened  between  the  partisans  of  Marx  and  Ba- 
knnin  at  the  Congress  of  the  "International"  at 
The  Hague,  Holland,  in  1872,  when  the  Russian  An- 
archist was  "excommunicated"  by  the  Marxists  be- 
cause of  his  extreme  views.  It  is  expected  that  there 
will  be  a  bitter  clash  between  the  two  wings  of  the 
American  Socialist  organizations  at  this  year's  con- 
vention. 

A  Temporary  Phenomenon. 

Syndicalism  must  be  considered  as  a  temporary 
psychological  hysterical  phenomenon,  something  sim- 
ilar to  the  outbreaks  of  the  militant  branch  of  the 
British  "suffragettes"  incidental  to  the  wave  of  social 
and  industrial  unrest  sweeping  over  the  world.  That 
it  will  ever  be  able  to  become  a  reality  in  the  appli- 
cation of  its  ideas  in  an  Industrial  Democracy  is 
not  believable  by  any  person  of  normal  reasoning 
powers.  Unlike  Socialism  proper,  it  has  not  been 
indorsed  by  a  single  recognized  authority  on  politics 
or  economics,  and  outside  of  France  and  Italy  there 
is  not  an  advocate  of  Syndicalism  of  any  acknowl- 
edged ability.  On  the  contrary,  Syndicalism  is  only 
advocated,  speaking  generally,  by  men  of  mediocre 
mental  parts,  whose  only  claim  to  public  attention 
are  their  ruffianly  and  revolutionary  speeches  and 
acts,  and  their  unfortunate  capacity  to  mislead  ig- 
norant workingmen.  Syndicalism  is  actively  opposed 
by  the  brainiest  leaders  of  the  Socialist  party  and  of 
Trade    Unionism   in    Germany,    England,    and    the 


124  SYNDICALISM 


United  States — both  as  to  its  methods  and  its  aims, 
although,  of  course,  Socialists  profess  to  believe  in 
a  coming  Industrial  Democracy, — only  as  previously 
explained,  it  is  to  be  of  a  different  kind  from  that 
of  the  Syndicalists. 

That  Syndicalism  will  leave  its  impress  upon  the 
proletarian  movement  is  altogether  likely,  but  that 
it  is  doomed  to  extinction  as  a  permanent  force  in 
the  evolution  of  industrial  and  social  economics  is 
the  concensus  of  opinion  of  students  of  the  subject. 

A  closing  observation  is  to  be  made — and  it  is 
not  an  agreeable  one ;  that  before  Syndicalism  has 
been  consigned  to  the  fate  of  Anarchism  and  Nihil- 
ism, it  is  probable  that  it  will  bring  much  suffering, 
turmoil,  and  even  bloodshed.  The  best  way  to  obviate 
these  disasters  is  to  expose  the  true  nature  of  Syn- 
dicalism, and  to  forward  every  sane  movement  for 
the  establishment  of  justice  and  brotherly  feeling 
between  man  and  man. 


Appendix 


Origin  of  Syndicalism. 

John  Graham  Brooks,  in  his  new  work,  American  Syndical- 
ism, goes  far  back  for  the  forerunners  of  the  modern  ' '  I.  W. 
W.," — and  again  it  is  staid  old  England  which  is  the  birth- 
place, as  of  Scientific  Socialism,  the  Minimum  Wage,  etc. : 

"It  is  an  even  eight  years  since  Owen  and  his  followers 
proposed — almost  to  the  last  detail — all  that  our  I.  W.  W. 
now  urge, — 'eliminate  politics,  band  labor  together  at  the  bot- 
tom with  light  dues  or  no  dues  at  all,  with  power  decentral- 
ized, the  general  strike,  and  the  dream  of  the  co-operative 
Commonwealth.'  The  'means  of  production'  were,  of  course, 
to  be  'taken  over,'  but  'were  to  become  the  property  not  of 
the  whole  community,  but  of  the  particular  set  of  workers 
who  used  them.  The  trade  unions  were  to  be  transformed 
into  national  companies  to  carry  on  all  the  manufactures. 
The  agricultural  union  was  to  take  possession  of  the  land, 
the  miners'  union  of  the  mines,  the  textile  unions  of  the 
factories.  Each  trade  was  to  be  carried  on  by  its  particular 
trade  union,  centralized  into  one  grand  lodge.'  " 

Then  came  the  English  "Chartists;"  and  Disraeli,  in  his 
Sybil,  thus  describes  what  occurred: 

"Every  engine  was  stopped,  the  plug  was  driven  out  of 
every  boiler,  every  fire  was  extinguished,  every  man  was  turned 
out.  The  decree  went  forth  that  labor  was  to  cease  until  the 
charter  was  the  law  of  the  land;  the  mine  and  the  mill,  the 
foundry  and  the  loomshop,  were,  until  that  consummation,  to 
be  idle;  nor  was  the  mighty  pause  to  be  confined  to  these 
great  enterprises.  Every  trade  of  every  kind  and  description 
was  to  be  stopped — tailor  and  cobbler,  brushmaker  and  sweep, 
tinker  and  carter,  mason  and  builder,  all,  all." 

After  that  came  the  "International,"  with  the  "Solidarity 

125 


126  APPENDIX 


of  Labor"  as  its  shibboleth;  and  the  founder  of  French  Syn- 
dicalism, Pelloutier,  acknowledged  the  parenthood  of  the  "In- 
ternational." 

And  John  Graham  Brooks  traces  the  origin  of  the  Amer- 
ican "I.  W.  W. "  to  the  Knights  of  Labor. 

The  "I.  W.  W." 

Following  are  the  declared  principles  of  the  "I.  W.  W. " 
(the  Chicago  organization)  : 

Preamble. — The  working  class  and  the  employing  class 
have  nothing  in  common. 

Between  these  two  classes  a  struggle  must  go  on  until  the 
workers  of  the  world  organize  as  a  class,  take  possession  of 
the  earth  and  the  machinery  of  production,  and  abolish  the 
wage  system. 

We  find  that  the  centering  of  the  management  of  industries 
into  fewer  and  fewer  hands  makes  the  trades  unions  unable 
to  cope  with  the  ever-growing  power  of  the  employing  class. 
The  trades  unions  foster  a  state  of  affairs  which  allows  one 
set  of  workers  to  be  pitted  against  another  set  of  workers  in 
the  same  industry,  thereby  helping  defeat  one  another  in  wage 
wars.  Moreover,  the  trades  unions  aid  the  employing  class  to 
mislead  the  workers  into  the  belief  that  the  working  class  have 
interests  in  common  with  their  employers. 

These  conditions  can  be  changed  and  the  interest  of  the 
working  class  upheld  only  by  an  organization  formed  in  such 
a  way  that  all  its  members  in  any  one  industry,  or  in  all 
industries,  if  necessary,  cease  work  whenever  a  strike  or  lock- 
out is  on  in  any  department  thereof,  thus  making  an  injury 
to  one  an  injury  to  all. 

Instead  of  the  conservative  motto,  ' '  A  fair  day 's  wages 
for  a  fair  day's  work,"  we  must  inscribe  on  our  banner  the 
revolutionary  watchword,  "Abolition  of  the  wage  system." 

It  is  the  historic  mission  of  the  woi'king  class  to  do  away 
with  capitalism.  The  army  of  production  must  be  organized, 
not  only  for  the  everyday  struggle  with  capitalists,  but  also 
to  carry  on  production  when  capitalism  shall  have  been  over- 


APPENDIX  •  127 


thrown.  By  organizing  industrially  we  are  forming  the  struc- 
ture of  the  new  society  within  the  shell  of  the  old. 

Excerpts  from  Constitution  and  By-laws  follow: 

The  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  shall  be  composed 
of  actual  wage-workers  brought  together  in  an  organization 
embodying  thirteen  National  industrial  departments,  National 
industrial  unions,  local  industrial  unions,  local  recruiting 
unions,   industrial   councils,   and  individual   members. 

The  annual  convention  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the 
World  shall  be  held  on  the  third  Monday  of  September  each 
year  at  such  place  as  may  be  determined  by  previous  con- 
vention. 

Members-at-large  shall  pay  an  initiation  fee  of  $2  and 
$1  per  month  dues  and  assessments.  No  working  man  or 
woman  shall  be  excluded  from  membership  in  local  unions 
because  of  creed  or  color. 

That  to  the  end  of  promoting  industrial  unity  and  of 
securing  necessary  discipline  within  the  organization,  the  In- 
dustrial Workers  of  the  World  refuse  all  alliances,  direct  or 
indirect,  with  existing  political  parties  or   anti-political  sects. 

Condemnation  of  the  "I.  W.  W. : ' ' 

An  Ohio  Legislative  Committee  investigated  the  causes 
leading  to  the  strike  of  the  rubber  workers  in  Akron  the  past 
winter,  and  incidentally  it  inquired  into  the  activities  of  the 
"I.  W.  W."  in  managing  the  "revolt."  At  the  head  of  this 
Committee  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the  Trade  Union  move- 
ment in  the  State — an  official  of  the  United  Miners.  The 
report  of  the  Committee  was  in  part  condemnatory  of  the 
employers,  particularly  for  their  refusal  to  confer  with  their 
employees  at  the  commencement  of  the  trouble, — and  had  they 
done  bo,  the  Committee  found,  the  strike  might  have  been 
averted;  but  it  was  also  found  that,  on  the  whole,  the  wages 
paid  the  rubber  workers  compared  favorably  with  those  in  other 
industries,  and  in  one  department  were  better.  The  Com- 
mittee unanimously  scathiugly  denounced  the  ' '  I.  W.  W. ' ' 
In  reference  to  "sabotage"  the  Committee  said: 


128  APPENDIX 


"We  submit  to  the  General  Assembly  that  this  dangerous 
doctrine  is  a  matter  of  grave  importance  and  public  concern, 
not  only  to  the  State  of  Ohio,  but  to  the  Nation  at  large.  The 
line  of  distinction  between  this  doctrine  and  anarchy  is  so 
indistinct  as  to  be  almost  imperceptible.  Those  who  labor 
must  suffer  in  the  end  because  of  the  spread  of  a  doctrine  of 
this  kind.  There  can  be  neither  moral  nor  material  improve- 
ment among  those  who  labor,  if  they  allow  the  leadership  of 
men  who  practice  and  preach  such  immoral  and  destructive 
doctrine.  In  the  last  analysis,  it  is  labor  which  is  injured 
most.  The  leaders  of  the  organization  of  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World  instead  of  helping  the  striking  employees 
of  the  rubber  factories  of  Akron,  did  them  much  injury  and 
are  largely  responsible  for  their  failure  to  secure  a  redress 
for  any  wrongs  which  may  have  existed  and  the  adjustment 
of  any  grievances  about  which  they  complained. 

"Very  few  of  the  striking  employees,  however,  testified 
that  they  believed  in  the  doctrine  of  sabotage,  but  almost 
universally  they  stated  they  had  affiliated  with  the  Industrial 
Workers  of  the  World's  organization  because  they  hoped, 
through  collective  action,  to  increase  their  wages  and  improve 
their  conditions  of  employment.  Many  of  them  admit  this 
doctrine  as  dangerous  and  destructive,  and  asserted  they  would 
not  subscribe  to  such  principles  or  practice. 

"The  testimony  strongly  indicated  that  the  reason  why 
no  conferences  were  held  between  committees  representing  the 
striking  employees  and  the  management  of  the  different  rubber 
factories  was  because  of  the  teaching  of  sabotage,  etc.,  by  the 
leaders  of  the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World.  To  this 
extent,  therefore,  this  organization  and  its  leaders  injured 
rather  than  helped  the  thousands  of  men  and  women  on  strike." 

The  Question  of  Violence. 

There  are  some  professed  "Intellectual"  Syndicalists  who 
are  really  nothing  but  philosophical  Socialists,  except  that 
they  believe  that  the  Industrial  Commonwealth  will  come 
through   ' '  group ' '    trade    unionism ;    and   they    disapprove   of 


APPENDIX  129 


the  • '  General  Strike, ' '  and  claim  to  abhor  ' '  Sabotage. ' '  But 
this  type  of  Syndicalists  are  not  numerous.  Nearly  all  Syn- 
dicalists— as  do  Revolutionary  Socialists — either  frankly  and 
defiantly  advocate  violence,  or  acquiesce  in  it,  or  else  secretly 
condone  it.  The  plain  truth  is  that  physical  violence — either 
brutally  open  or  scoundrelly  treacherous  and  secret — is  one 
of  the  main  tenets  of  Syndicalism.  William  English  Walling, — 
an  avowed  anti-political  Marxian  Socialist,  with  a  mildly 
critical  view  of  Syndicalism — says  in  the  New  'Review: 

"Violence  also  is  usually  condoned  on  the  unconsciously 
humorous  ground  that  if  the  police  and  militia  were  not  present, 
there  would  be  little  violence.  No  unions  advocate  violence, 
but  none  surrender  to  the  law  those  among  their  members  who 
succumb  to  temptation  under  critical  or  exceptional  circum- 
stances, and  it  is  rarely  that  they  do  not  furnish  defense  funds. 
Even  the  I.  W.  W.  does  not  advocate  violence,  but  it  is  more 
frank  in  its  attitude  towards  it  than  the  older  unions." 

John  Graham  Brooks,  in  introducing  the  chapter  on  ' '  Vio- 
lence" in  his  American  Syndicalism,  says:  "Among  some 
of  the  ablest  expositors  of  I.  W.  W.  principles,  there  seems 
to  me  very  little  pretense  that  violence  may  not  be  necessary 
at  certain  stages  and  under  certain  conditions.  They  are  now 
but  just  started  on  their  journey."  And  the  author  gives 
ample  quotations  from  "I.  W.  W. "  leaders  for  his  assertion. 
He  quotes  the  amiable  Ettor,  who  is  on  the  Executive  Board 
of  the  "I.  W.  W. "  as  quite  jovially  admitting: 

"Yes,  gentle  reader,  our  ideas,  our  principles,  and  object 
are  certainly  dangerous  and  menacing;  applied  by  a  united 
working  class  would  shake  society,  and  certainly  those  who 
are  now  on  top  sumptuously  feeding  upon  the  good  things 
they  have  not  produced  would  feel  the  shock.  To  talk  of  peace 
between  capital  and   labor  is  'stupid  or  knavish.'  " 

W.  E.  Trautman,  one  of  the  "big  guns"  of  the  American 
Syndicalists,  frankly  declares  that  from  their  standpoint  there 
can  be  no  agreement  between  employers  of  labor  ' '  which  the 
workers  have  to  consider  sacred  and  inviolable," — that  they 
are  justified  in  doing  just  the  opposite  of  what  they  had  agreed 

9 


130  APPENDIX 


to  do  "when  occasion  arises  to  gain  advantage  to  the  worker," 
and  that  to  disobey  court  injunctions  is  a  "duty." 

Yincent  St.  John,  the  National  Secretary  of  the  "I.  W. 
\V.,"  writes  in  his  History:  "As  a  revolutionary  organization 
the  Industrial  Workers  of  the  World  aims  to  use  any  and 
all  tactics  that  will  get  the  results  sought  with  the  least 
expenditure  of  time  and  energy.  The  tactics  used  are  de- 
termined solely  by  the  power  of  the  organization  to  make  good 
in  their  use.  The  question  of  'right'  and  'wrong'  does  not 
concern  us. ' ' 

One  of  the  organs  of  American  Syndicalism  is  Solidarity. 
On  January  4,  1912,  it  declared  that  members  of  the  "I.  W. 
W. "  would  decline  to  join  in  condemnation  of  the  McNamaras 
and  the  other  dynamiters  who  sacrificed  so  many  lives  at  Los 
Angeles;  to  them  it  was  only  "another  incident  in  the  class 
struggle."  And  this  organ  of  the  Industrial  Millennium  asks: 
' '  Must  we  meekly  apologize  for  those  of  our  kind  who  occa- 
sionally strike  back  under  great  provocation?  The  capitalist 
sowed  the  wind  and  reaped  a  little  zephyr  of  a  cyclone  in  this 
case  under  consideration.  Let  the  blood  be  upon  the  heads  of 
our  masters ! ' ' 

Speaking  of  the  thirty-three  "dynamiters"  who  had  just 
been  imprisoned  at  Leavenworth,  after  a  lengthy  trial  at 
Indianapolis,  Frank  Bohn,  one  of  the  editors  of  the  Inter- 
national Socialist  Review  (favorable  to  Syndicalism),  referred 
in  the  Call  (another  "red"  Socialist  paper)  to  the  McNamaras 
and  their  colleagues  as  "the  John  Browns  of  the  social  revo- 
lution," and  as  "the  soldiers  of  the  working  class."  To-day, 
he  said,  they  are  passing  through  the  doors  of  Leavenworth 
prison.  "Let  every  revolutionary  worker  in  the  land  stand 
with  bowed  head  as  they  pass.  They  are  fighters  of  the 
working  class.  That  is  enough  for  us  now."  And  he  winds 
up  with  this  fervent  wish:  "May  every  one  of  you  thirty- 
three  live  to  come  out  of  jail  so  that  we  may  grasp  you  by  the 
hand  and  welcome  you  as  comrades  into  the  ranks  of  an  army 
which  can  never  know  defeat ! ' ' 


APPENDIX  131 


' '  Sabotage.  ' ' 

In  an  anti-strike  law  passed  by  the  Briand  administration 
in  France,  ' '  Sabotage ' '  is  officially  denned  as  ' '  the  willful 
destruction,  deterioration,  or  rendering  useless  of  instruments 
or  other  objects,  with  a  view  of  stopping  or  hampering  work, 
industry,  or  commerce. ' ' 

According  to  J.  H.  Harley,  M.  A.,  an  English  writer,  whose 
booklet  entitled  Syndicalism  has  recently  reached  America, 
"Sabotage"  "might  mean  dropping  petroleum  into  the  knead- 
ing-trough. It  might  mean  a  short  circuit  in  the  electric 
installation.  It  might  mean  a  nail  in  the  wood  to  be  cut 
by  the  circular  saw.  It  might  even  mean  a  gash  in  the  cap- 
italist's chin  by  the  action  of  a  Syndical  razor."  This  writer, 
by  the  way,  points  out  that  Sorel,  the  French  Syndicalist — 
sometimes  called  "the  Marx  of  Syndicalism" — detests  Sabot- 
age. 

Although  Debs  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  "I.  W.  W.," 
he  is  now  quoted  as  declaring  that  "Sabotage  repels  the 
American  worker," — for  which  some  of  his  "red"  comrades 
have  reproved  him. 

John  Graham  Brooks  in  Syndicalism  says: 

' '  The  issues  raised  by  sabotage  have  furnished  continuous 
occasion  for  the  sharpest  differences  in  opinion,  not  only 
among   Socialists,   but   within   the   ranks   of   Syndicalism. 

' '  The  fine,  technically  trained  intelligence  of  Sorel  showed 
a  wholesome  fear  of  sabotage  and  cried  out  lustily  against  it, 
as  does  also  Edouard  Berth.  II.  G.  Wells  is  the  easy  peer 
of  M.  Sorel.  He  has  M.  Sorel 's  dislike  for  Fabian  politics, 
but  these  features  of  Syndicalism  offer  him  no  possible  plan 
of  social  development.  It  is  to  him  merely  'a  spirit  of  con- 
flict. '  It  is  '  the  cheap  labor  panacea  to  which  the  more 
passionate  and  less  intelligent  portion  of  the  younger  workers 
drift.'  It  is  the  ' tawdrification  of  the  trade  unionism'  and 
even  its  dream  is  'an  impossible  social  fragmentation.' 
Kautsky  and  the  uncompromising  Guesde,  who  despises  par- 
liamentary action,  are  little  less  severe.  I  do  not  bring  against 
the  I.  W.  W.  the  hostile  opinions  of  the  Webbs,  Keir  Hardy, 


132  APPENDIX 


MacDonald,  and  German  leaders.  Such  opposition  is  to  be 
expected.  It  is  more  serious  when  men  as  untrammeled  as 
Sorel,  Guesde,  Bax,  and  Wells  rise  up  against  it.  These 
writers,  one  and  all,  look  upon  sabotage  as  a  clumsily  out-of- 
date  and  reactionary  device. 

"With  still  more  severity  W.  J.  Ghent  (a  leading  Amer- 
ican Marxian  Socialist)  says  in  the  Socialist  National  Organ: 
'To  preach  violence  and  sabotage  to  the  working  class  is  to 
preach  not  a  working-class  morality,  not  a  Socialist  morality, 
but  a  slave  morality.  It  is  the  morality  of  Roman  slaves  in 
the  days  of  the  empire.  By  lying,  deceit,  craft,  and  theft 
they  sought  to  lessen  the  evils  of  their  lot.  They  did  not 
heroically  strive  for  emancipation.  .  .  .  But  the  slave  sys- 
tem as  a  whole  was  not  affected  by  this  form  of  resistance — 
if  it  may  be  called  by  that  term.  Nor  will  the  tenure  of  the 
capitalist  system  be  affected  by  a  like  policy. '  ' ' 

' '  La  Greve  Perlee.  ' ' 

In  the  explanation  of  "Sabotage,"  in  the  body  of  this 
work,  a  quotation  is  given  from  Prof.  Louis  Levine  in  which 
attention  is  drawn  to  the  French  practice  of  la  greve  perlee. 
John  Graham  Brooks  says  in  his  American  Syndicalism  that 
Prof.  Ernest  Dimnet,  of  Paris,  has  written  to  him  explaining 
that  la  greve  perlee  is  "railway  slang.  For  several  months 
the  men  just  changed  the  addresses  stuck  on  the  cars,  so  they 
(the  cars)  were  as  hard  to  find  as  pearls  that  had  dropped 
off  the  string." 

During  the  strike  on  the  French  railroads — crushed  by  the 
Socialist  Premier,  M.  Briand — one  of  the  hints  given  to  them 
by  the  Syndicalist  leaders  was :  ' '  Quietly  change  the  address 
on  freight  cars  filled  with  perishable  foods,  so  they  shall  go 
one  or  two  hundred  miles  south  instead  of  north  of  Paris, 
and  then  get  sidetracked  a  few  days  more." 

The  Belgian  "General  Strike." 

The  "general  strike"  in  Belgium  in  April,  1913,  was  in 
several  respects  the  most  remarkable  in  history, — in  its  exhibi- 


APPENDIX  133 


tion  of  the  "solidarity  of  labor"  and  in  the  success  which  it 
achieved.  It  illustrated  Mirabeau's  declaration  of  the  for- 
midability  of  a  people  Mho  adopted  the  principle  of  "im- 
movability"— simply  becoming  passive.  Victor  Hugo,  in 
Histoire  d'un  Crime,  refers  to  "La  Greve  Universelle, "  and 
coined  the  very  term  now  frequently  used  by  Syndicalists — 
"folding  the  arms"  (croisant  les  bras).  But  it  should  be 
pointed  out  that  the  recent  demonstration  of  the  Belgian 
workingmen  was  not  a  Syndicalist  ' '  general  strike. ' '  It  was 
a  strike  for  a  specific  purpose — and  that  purpose  was  entirely 
political;  it  was  to  compel  the  Government  to  take  steps  to 
do  away  with  the  unfair  system  of  plural  voting  and  to 
establish  the  suffrage  on  the  basis  of  "one  man,  one  vote." 
There  was  no  question  of  wages  or  of  improvement  of  labor 
conditions  involved.  By  agreement  among  themselves,  and  by 
positive  orders  of  the  leaders,  the  strikers  were  not  to  be 
guilty  of  any  violence  or  of  any  breaking  of  the  law;  the 
Government  and  the  public  were  duly  warned  of  the  strike 
in  advance,  and  the  men  protected  the  public  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  any  inconvenience;  and  directly  the  Government 
gave  an  undertaking  to  bring  about  a  reform  of  the  suffrage 
system,  the  men  returned  to  work. 

In  American  Syndicalism  (published  just  before  the  Bel- 
gian strike),  John  Graham  Brooks  asserts:  "Apart  from 
its  political  uses,  the  'general  strike'  has  been  found  to  be  a 
weapon  so  dangerous  to  labor  that  no  instance  can  be  shown 
of  its  economic  triumph.  No  one  has  seen  this  so  clearly 
as  the  Socialist  leaders  in  every  country.  If  Jaures,  Kautsky, 
Vandervelde  flirt  with  it,  they  make  it  clear  that  its  uses  are 
political.  .  .  .  These  leaders  feared  the  very  thing  that 
has  happened  in  Sweden,  France,  and  England  since  the 
Swedish  'general  strike'  in  1909 — namely,  its  increasing  un- 
controllable economic  disorders." 

Socialists  and  "Direct  Action." 

The  indications  multiply  that  while  the  ' '  Intellectuals ' ' 
among  the  American  Socialists  are  becoming  increasingly  con- 


134  APPENDIX 


servative,  the  mass  of  the  party  are  becoming  saturated  with 
Syndicalism,  particularly  the  spirit  of  "direct  action." 
Within  recent  years  the  "Intellectuals"  have  largely  con- 
trolled the  organization  of  the  Socialist  party,  but  the  present 
outlook  is  that  power  is  slipping  from  them,  and  that  the 
genuine  proletarian  "reds"  are  to  soon  seize  the  reins. 

At  a  State  Convention  of  Ohio  Socialists,  held  April  26, 
1913,  one-third  of  the  delegates  voted  for  a  resolution  de- 
claring that  "Socialists  elected  to  office  shall  use  their  power 
solely  in  the  interests  of  the  working  class,  regardless  of  all 
capitalistic  laws."  The  incidental  discussion  made  it  plain 
that  what  was  meant  by  "capitalistic  laws"  was  any  law  duly 
enacted  by  Congress,  a  State  Legislature,  or  a  municipality, 
which  workingmen  might  take  it  into  their  heads  to  violate. 
In  other  words,  one-third  of  the  delegates  practically  declared 
themselves  to  be  Anarchists.  It  is  significant  that  among  those 
who  so  voted  were  several  men  holding  important  official  posi- 
tions in  municipalities.  As  the  Convention  proceeded  the 
"reds" — or  Syndicalists,  or  "direct  actionists" — grew  in 
strength  over  the  "yellows,"  as  the  conservative  political 
Socialists  are  called.  Officials  of  the  party  who  had  been 
disciplined  for  espousing  violence  and  "sabotage"  (and  thus 
violating  the  rule  laid  down  at  the  last  annual  National  Con- 
vention) were  restored  to  power,  this  reinstatement  following 
as  the  result  of  a  referendum  which  was  a  specific  endorse- 
ment by  the  membership  at  large  of  these  officials  in  advo- 
cating Syndicalism. 

Bibliography. 

There  are  not  many  books  in  the  English  language  which 
can  be  referred  to  as  authorities  on  Syndicalism,  the  reason 
being  that  it  is  only  within  the  last  two  years  that  even  stu- 
dents and  literary  professors  of  Socialism  and  economics  in 
England  and  America  became  acquainted  with  it, — or  if  they 
did  know  anything  about  it,  thought  it  of  sufficient  importance 
to  give  it  serious  attention. 

President  Wilson  recently  paid  a  compliment  to  the  London 


APPENDIX  135 


Times  as  an  authority  on  the  real  news  of  the  world;  and  it 
is  now  widely  recognized  by  observers  of  important  develop- 
ments in  all  branches  of  human  endeavor  and  thought,  that 
no  other  publication  keeps  up  with  the  staid  old  London 
Times.  It  was  the  Times  which  first  exposed  Continental 
Syndicalism  and  sounded  the  alarm  in  England — and  that 
alarm  reached  across  to  America.  That  was  less  than  two 
years  ago.  Since  then  there  has  been  an  increasing  stream 
of  expository  articles  in  the  English  and  American  magazines, 
reviews,  economic  and  social-reform  journals,  and  the  daily 
press.  Most  of  the  literature  in  the  English  language  on 
Syndicalism  is  fragmentary,  and  is  of  such  a  character  that 
it  does  not  come  under  the  observation  of  the  casual  reader; 
and  nearly  all  the  standard  original  authorities  are  in  the 
French  and  Italian  languages. 

As  a  matter  of  record,  it  might  be  noted  that  probably 
the  first  independent  and  comprehensive  exposition  of  Syn- 
dicalism to  appear  in  America  was  by  the  writer,  in  the 
Forum,  of  August,  1912. 

J.  H.  Harley,  M.  A.,  in  his  booklet  Syndicalism  (which  has 
recently  come  from  London),  says: 

"The  writings  of  the  Syndicalist  leaders  are  scattered 
about  here  and  there  in  magazines,  newspapers,  and  pamphlets, 
and  some  of  the  magazines  and  newspapers  have  long  ceased 
to  be  issued.  The  volumes  of  Le  Mouvement  Socialists  for  the 
last  seven  or  eight  years,  however,  contain  more  of  the  Syn- 
dicalist views  of  opinions  than  any  other  single  magazine  or 
pamphlet.  For  America,  consult  one  of  the  latest  volumes  of 
the  International  Socialist  Beview." 

The  following  books  in  the  English  language  are  recom- 
mended to  the  student   of  Syndicalism: 

Syndicalism,  by  J.  H.  Harley,  M.  A.;  published  by  T.  C.  & 
E.  C.  Jack,  London,  and  the  Dodge  Publishing  Co.,  New 
York.      (1912.) 

The  New  Social  Democracy,  ditto. 


136  APPENDIX 


American  Syndicalism — The  I.  W.  TV.,  by  John  Graham  Brooks; 
published  by  the  Macmillans,  London  and  New  York. 
(1913.) 

The  New  Socialism,  by  Jane  T.  Stoddart;  published  by  Hodder 
&  Stoughton,  London  and  New  York.     (1912.) 

Syndicalism  and  Labor,  by  Sir  Arthur  Clay,  Bart.;  published 
by  John  Murray,  London.     (1912.) 

Socialism  As  It  Is,  by  William  English  Walling;  published 
by  the  Macmillans,  New  York  and  London.      (1912.) 

Socialism  and  the  Social  Movement,  by  Werner  Sombart,  of 
Berlin;  translated  from  the  sixth  German  edition  by  M. 
Epstein,  M.  A.,  Ph.  D. ;  published  by  J.  M.  Dent,  London, 
and  E.   P.  Dutton,  New  York.      (1909.) 

Syndicalism  and  the  General  Strike,  by  Arthur  D.  Lewis;  pub- 
lished by  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  London.     (1912.) 

The  Worker  and  His  Country,  by  Fabian  Ware;  published 
by  Edward  Arnold,  London.     (1912.) 

Syndicalism,  by  J.  Eamsay  MacDonald;  published  by  Con- 
stable, London.     (1912.) 


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